Navigating

Whether you are trying to find covered bridges on back country roads, or searching through old records to find just that one name and date, it takes some navigating.  We did a lot of that today.

Skipping a morning walk today, and armed with a local map and brochure, we headed out into the country on a treasure hunt - finding covered bridges.

 You don't find covered bridges on highways.  The Pleasantville Bridge was so pleasantly surrounded by lush trees and old homes that it was hard to photograph.

I almost stepped on this as I was taking photos.  I had to look it up to confirm that it is a cicada, since we don't have them in our neck of the woods, but I sure heard them buzzing in the trees by the bridge.

Of course we were in farm country again, and we like to identify crops.  We think this is soybeans.  And more corn, of course.

The Griesemer's Bridge was right in a farm, with the old mill on one side, and cows on the other.

The small town of Oley was very picturesque.

The stone building is the remains of the mill at the Kutz's Mill Bridge.

 Yes, I did get out and walk through every one of them.

The Dreibelbis Station Bridge looked at first like it was the private driveway of this lovely old home.

 Yesterday we found confirmation of a family wedding in 1806 preformed by the pastor of this church, St. Paul's (Smoke) Evangelical Lutheran Church.  Today we found it.

 The word (Smoke) in the name has an uncertain history.  Either it refers to the smoke coming through the cracks in the first old log structure, or it refers to the fact that the men stood around and smoked while waiting for the circuit pastor to arrive.

 We drove through historic Hamburg, and then north through the gap in the Blue Mountain ridge of the Appalachians. 

On the other side we found another important family history church, the "Red Church", or Zion's Lutheran and Reformed Church.

It's hard to read the oldest date, but there are records going back to 1755.

 On to Pottsville, where we were ready when the  Schuylkill County Historical Society opened at 1:30.

It is housed in an old Grammar School for girls, dating to 1863.

Just one of the volumes of records we navigated here.

 We still do not have the proof we seek, but we got a few more bits and pieces to the puzzle.

 The Schuylkill County Courthouse is quite grand.  We didn't go in here, but we did go to the library nearby.

But by then we had found all there was to find for now, and we were weary, so we quit for the day, and found an alternate route to take back to Reading and our hotel.

After dinner I went for a twilight walk in a neighborhood on a hill above our hotel.  I saw fireflies!  That's another bug we don't have at home.