PA Woods and Waters: Shingletown

My husband and I occasionally make the trek to Boalsburg for the Friday lunch fish fry at Duffy's Tavern, which we did on this day. Though it was hot out, I advocated for a short stop on our drive home for a little side trip to the woods and waters at Shingletown.

There is a major construction project going on around the reservoir. It was empty and the water was diverted around it. There are two big trees down, and I wondered when that happened. Maybe last weekend during one of those tremendous storms.

And everything was grown in, and green, green, green. The place is just surrounded by rhododendron thickets, and the flowers are blooming in the palest shade of white-pink, with light green centers, looking as though they had been painted by hand.

In years gone by, my husband and I always climbed the rocky hills at Shingletown, and I have one memory that actually hurts: the time I caught my foot on a tree root, and down I went, knee first, onto hard rocks, ripping the pocket right out of my new hiking pants. Yes, I sat down and cried! But it was too hot for climbing the hills on this day; we stayed by the creek.

Above is a picture of the waters themselves, looking refreshing even on the hottest of summer days. Let me tell you this, and you will know why it means so much to me: this is the place in the State College area that reminds me most of Lost Creek, and home.

Speaking of which, I wanted to tell you this happy news: my mother, still in rehab, has continued to improve, and they let my dad take her home, just for the day, on this past Wednesday for a home inspection. My little sister shared the news that my father was "giddy as a teenager" over this event, which made me smile. My parents' love for each other is precious to me.

Mom is scheduled to come home on July 10, just a few days before our family reunion, which I don't expect she'll actually attend. But we will make plans to see her while we are in the neighborhood next weekend. (For the reunion, I'm thinking about making those iced brownie bites that went over so well at an office potluck a while back.)

My little sister attempted on this day to do a Facebook live phone chat with my Mom on her end and me on mine. We kept shouting Hello! Hello! at one another, and there was my mother's face, and my sister Julie's, all of us trying so hard.

But the connection didn't work, alas. I think still of my mother's lovely face, looking intently into the computer; searching, searching; looking for ME. Dear Mama, I will see you "for reals" again! I will come home soon!

And for this photo of a place that reminds me so much of the woods and waters of my central Pennsylvania mountain home, here is this: Bonnie Raitt and Randy Newman, with Feels Like Home.