WEEKEND PHOTO FUN 6-19-15-??

Get away weekend to the upper tier counties of Pennsylvania.  Wellsboro and Corning RR.

You gotta love all the green and wet, A couple of the upper tier counties have less than 20,000 people.  Wellsboro, Tioga Co. about 40,000.

More ducks and geese than people.

Two counties to the west, McKean Co.   Knox, Kane, Kinzua RR. remains of the Kinzua viaduct. Major construction, as this state park is being upgraded.  Information on site, indicates at one time the highest RR bridge in the world.

Additional pictures.

Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania.  Note the rail trail, left of the river.  Probably NY Central lines.

You gotta love the heat and humidity, welcome to PA.

For those first time Pennsylvania explores, we post this at most State Parks. I would not advise admiring a snakes eyes

Green and, plenty of water, Welcome to Pennsylvania.

Sure, you can tell a venomous snake from nonvenomous one by looking at their eyes. But I sure won't be standing around to look one in the eye!!!

There is ONE problem with that.  There is ONE venomous snake with round eyes.  I think it is the King snake or Coral snake.  So be careful. Be very very careful.  I kill all snakes.  I hope God forgives me but I won't take a chance.

Ok, Coral snakes have round eyes, also.  Coral snakes are the venomous ones.  Red and yellow stripes touching, Kill a fellow.  King snake non-venomous, red and black stripes touching.

Rick

I remember doing the Turkey Path years ago.    That sign understates it!

I have color slides of the Kinzua Bridge long before it was blown down.  I would say I was there in about 1981 or 1982.

I walked the trail down the Pennsylvania Grand Canyon and back up with my brother in the early '80s also.  As I recall it was a great summers day for a hike.

I love the beautiful green photos.  All of us in CA wish that our state was that green.  I don't kill snakes.  They provide a useful service by keeping the rodent population in check.  I just avoid them if possible.  I think that anyone who is close enough to a snake to determine the shape of its eyes is much too close.  Live and let live is my philosophy.

NH Joe 

Agreed with all of that Joe.  The only one I killed was about 4 feet long, and I found it was living in the stone wall next to the basement door.  It was either the snake or my wife would have flipped out! 

Mike,

I forgot to comment on the Buffalo and Pittsburgh diesel.  The B&P runs right through Butler, just down the hill from my house.  I hear their trains and those of the Bessemer and Lake Erie (now owned by Canadian National) from my house all the time.  Railroading is not dead!  I often pass the bridge by the B&P engine service facility at Butler.  You see diesels with all kinds of names on them.  I'm glad you posted these photos from up North.

The shooting range we go to is on the way to the desert and is where rattlesnakes live.

I like to shoot clay pidgeons proped up against a rock with 22's. So I go to the trap range occasionally to gather partial pidgeons and in the brush there I really look before every move.

Be aware.  Safety meeting. Two reasons reptiles would be near walking trails.

(1.) Easy movement. The trail also provides a path for critters to move.

(2.) Food source.  Active trails have food waste, some places, a lot.  Food waste draws mice, and other rodents, which are food for the snakes.  Those snacks and drinks that are carried in back packs need to be properly handled and disposed of.  The more people that frequent a trail, the more likely there will be rodents, i.e. reptiles.

Look closely as you step over logs or rocks.  Most cases, these critters are shy and timid, not aggressive. 

I killed a few of the Mohave Greens when I lived in the Palmdale hills, they are the most dangerouse of all Snakes in the U.S. If it has a greenish tinge and diamond patern skin, you shoot first and check there eyes later.

I now live in Virginia and we have the infamouse Copperheads with a copperish tinge with a diamond patern on their skin I also shoot first. My neighbors dog can find them easily.