Greenwood Furnace: Girls Just Want To Have Fun

My husband and I had decided that we'd go swimming at Greenwood Furnace on Wednesday morning before it got too hot. The park's 6-acre lake typically provides the most refreshing cold-water swim that we know of. My husband brought the thermometer along and the water was 60 degrees. What's more fun on a 90+-degree day than a 60-degree swim?

The park's history is iron making. In fact, such a community flourished here in the 1800s, from about 1834 to 1904, and many artifacts remain throughout the park, including the furnace stacks. There is also an ironmaking shop you can visit during certain hours of the week.

The park is close to Big Valley, and is frequented by many Amish and Mennonite families. It is not unusual to encounter people in old-fashioned dress, like the Mennonite girls in the photo above. They typically wear modest swimwear, not swimsuits as we think of them, but more like swim dresses. 

I chose this photo because it seemed to represent an old-fashioned world that still remains, tucked inside our modern world, or perhaps, two steps behind it. The girls looked so lovely in their colorful garb, with their matron - who seemed straight out of a Brueghel painting - and it was clear they were having way more fun than anybody else in the whole park!

So let's let our soundtrack song be this one: Cyndi Lauper, with Girls Just Want To Have Fun. A set of 9 photos of the park, plus a short video of the water on the spillway, may be viewed here on Instagram.