Category: United States

Covered Bridges of Somerset County, PA

Posted on by Annie

If you thought Lancaster County had cornered the market on covered bridges in Pennsylvania, you’d be wrong. Somerset County holds claim to ten such bridges, so of course I went in search of some of them one sunny afternoon. And by “in search of” I mean that there’s not one website with all the GPS coordinates of these things and even Google Maps didn’t get a few of them right so I was literally searching the countryside at times. Oh, well, it was a pretty day and the countryside, both forested and farmed, was lovely scenery, easy on the eyes….

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Black Moshannon State Park, PA

Posted on by Annie

One thing you learn quickly as a full-timer is to make sure you’ve got a solid plan for each of the big summer holidays. Memorial Day kicks off the summer camping for many people, so it’s not the weekend to wing it. I’d reserved at Black Moshannon almost six months out because that’s about how fast campgrounds are filling up for the holiday weekends in 2021. And sure, enough, the campground was completely booked, except for one sweet spot. Which wasn’t where I landed when I arrived…

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Gold Head Branch State Park, FL

Posted on by Annie

The formal name is Mike Roess Gold Head Branch State Park, but that’s obviously a mouthful, so most people just call it Gold Head, from what I was told. There’s a deep ravine that splits the park in two, with trails on either side of it, and that ravine is Gold Head Branch.

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Lake Wateree State Park, SC

Posted on by Annie

Ah, Lake Wateree State Park, full of trees and squirrels mating all over the place. Yes, my timing was absolutely perfect to see squirrel mating habits in the wild, from chasing each other all over the fallen leaves to scampering up and down trees in very, uh, creative ways. I actually never got tired of watching them bound all over the place, they’re quite entertaining little critters.

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Congaree National Park

Posted on by Annie

One of the newest American national parks (2003), Congaree is a surprising place of wonder in the middle of South Carolina. A mix of American beech and bald cypress trees, with some switch cane plants and palms thrown into the mix, it is a truly Southern forest, protected and preserved thanks to local residents who started a campaign in the 1950s to preserve the Congaree River floodplain.

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