Dad’s 101st

Nick’s pic of Dad on his 101st birthday.

More pics to come from Dad’s family birthday weekend. Meanwhile, following is a 1993 USGS satellite image including Dad’s 28 acres. I had been hoping to find the subsequent satellite image I remember clearly showing the X in the oats field (which here appears as a perfectly clear rectangle). The corn field and the punkin field also appear clear here. We never knew what to make of the strange spiral formation on the neighbor’s property to the right.

David & Wena Ridout’s Place, Export, Pennsylvania, USGS Satellite Photo 1993, as gratefully copied from http://terraserver.microsoft.com onto now defunct website users.aol.com/eridout on 16 July 1998.

Meyersdale

The old Western Maryland Railroad station at Meyersdale is now the Meyersdale Historical Society and a great rest stop for cyclists, walkers, and runners on the Great Allegheny Passage Trail. That trail (which Trudy H and I bicycled three years ago) runs 156 miles from Pittsburgh to Cumberland, where it connects to the C&O Canal trail for another 184 miles to Washington DC (I haven’t done that leg yet). Only about a mile from the Meyersdale Station is the Salisbury Viaduct, 1900 feet long, and 100 feet above the Casselman River and US Route 219. The viaduct selfie below is from April, when I had a run from Linda McD’s house a couple of miles towards Pittsburgh and back, then a couple of miles towards Cumberland and back. This view of the viaduct I snapped from the car on our Export trip in May.

Brave chimney sweep

That’s a 40′ ladder which he put up and took down without help but not without difficulty. The task was to repair the crown, the rubberized cement which surrounds the chimney pot. The stainless steel chimney cap (temporarily parked between roof and ladder) did not need replacing.

Union Church Steeple

The newly restored (June 2019) belfry and steeple on the old Union Church in Falmouth (c. 1819), via zoom lens from the south lawn at Belmont, the Gari Melchers Home and Studio. (The restoration was reported in this Free Lance-Star article).

I took another shot a few days later without the zoom lens: a wider view of Falmouth from Belmont’s blue bathroom window. Most prominent is the 1966 Falmouth Baptist Church, but the Union Church spire can still be seen in the trees further to the right.

A few more photos from Belmont: the eagle greeting arrivals to the front door, the vertical sundial between the bathroom windows above the sun room (at 10:19am, Feb 14th, 2020), and the south side of the house (at 3:44pm a week later). The sun room was a 1920s (?) Melchers addition to the 1795 house.

The horseshoe staircase outside the back door has a century-old ornate railing which we hope to see renovated soon. This is the center panel, seen from inside the house, looking down the hill to the back gate.