We camped at Ohiopyle State Park, a favorite because there are several options for rafting and kayaking, plus a great rail-trail bike path.
Ohiopyle is about an hour from the Flight 93 Memorial, and this time we took the opportunity to visit this site dedicated to the thirty-three passengers and seven crew members who fought back against the hijackers of their plane.
The black granite represents the path of the plane’s descent toward its final resting place near Stoystown, Pennsylvania — less than 20 minutes flight from Washington D.C, the hijackers’ intended target.
Friends and family watched the investigation from this vantage point.
The impact crater was filled in at the request of the coroner, and the site marked with a boulder visible through this gate.
As you can tell from these photos, it’s a quiet place — nothing like the scenes from the Pentagon and World Trade Centers — which makes the Memorial all the more humbling because we are forced to consider what might have happened without the bravery of the passengers and crew.
They are memorialized by individual slabs of white marble on which a single name is engraved.
As I said, it’s a quiet place, and the few visitors we saw seemed to respect and honor those represented here.
If you’re ever in the area, I hope you’ll make time to visit, if only to remind you that sometimes human beings can work together to overcome evil.
To prepare for your visit, The Engineer recommends The Only Plane in the Sky, by Garrett M.Graff, which I ordered on audio for him from the library. Billed as a “comprehensive oral history,” it’s read by a 45-person cast, and has been receiving accolades far beyond my husband’s.
Image from Barnes and Noble website (link above).
For more information on the Memorial, visit the National Park Service website.
On Departure Camp Supplies Tent, stakes, poles, lines
Sleeping bags
Pillows
Mattresses
Chairs
Flashlight/camp lights (solar)
Fan
Little broom
Bug spray
Bug zappers
Sunscreen
First aid/meds
Clothesline
Clothes pins
Tent mallet/hammer/hatchet
Bikes, helmet, handlebar bag, lock, inhaler, lymph sleeve, gloves
Daypack
Trash/recycle bag
Baby wipes
Bungie cords
Sanitizer
Sanitizing wipes
TP
Duct tape
Tie wraps
Binoculars
Leatherman
Cooking Supplies Camp stove and fuel
Pans w plates, cups
Cast iron skillets (deep, shallow)
Dutch oven and lid
Utensils — cooking and eating, tongs, flipper,
Roasting fork
Sharp knives, lg and small
Foil (heavy duty)
Paper towels
Pie maker
Bucket, Coleman water cooler
Dish soap
Scrubbie, steel wool pad
Dish hangers made from onion bags
Coolers
Ice
Water bottles
Can opener
Matches
Ziplocs
Pot holders
Charcoal and chimney if using
Oven gloves
Plastic containers
Misc Phone
Phone charger
Cables
Power block
Nook or book
Food, clothing, personal items
On Return
All the above
More mosquito bites than I can count
Sunburn on both wrists and one ankle that I evidently missed with the sunscreen before rafting on a sunny 94F day. (Turns out sunscreen really works, at least on the parts you manage to cover.)
Several inexplicable bruises
Possible poison oak blister (or maybe just a bad insect bite)
Newly gained knowledge on dutch oven campfire cooking
Several additional items for future camping inventory:
Pruners
Volcano (Kelly) kettle
Spatula
Cutting board
Chums (for glasses)
Verdict: Yes, we can manage eat well in camp using only a single burner and campfire. (On past trips, we ate half our meals in restaurants — not something we feel comfortable doing at the moment.)
If you’re interested, here’s what we ate: First night
Quesadillas done in dutch oven (black beans, chorizo, salsa, cheese, tortillas — slightly burnt, but good) Second day
Breakfast: Oatmeal with dried cranberries (The Engineer refused to eat his. Thirty-two years in, I didn’t know he didn’t like oatmeal. Go figure.)
Lunch on the river: Pre-made curried salmon salad in a pita, pre-cut veggies, apple, snack mix
Dinner: Foil wraps done in the fire (potatoes, bratwurst, carrots, onions and a little butter — an old favorite)
Snacks: Cheese and cracker sandwiches (Store bought in a package of eight — these filled in the gaps quite nicely), ice cream from local parlor Third Day
Very Late Breakfast: Hashbrown, onion, pepper, cheese, egg scramble wrapped in tortilla (I ate mine with my homemade zucchini salsa. Delicious!)
Snack/lunch: Cheese and cracker sandwiches (packaged)
Dinner: Chile with cornbread topping done in dutch oven (leftover black beans and chorizo, onions, peppers, seasoning topped with cornbread made from a mix with some cheese added in — I loved it, especially the cornbread. The Engineer liked the chile, but not the cornbread. No surprise there.) Fourth Day
Breakfast: Same as third day
Snack: Packaged cheese cracker sandwiches, ice cream from local parlor on way home
Late lunch/dinner: Picnic of leftover salmon salad, pre-cut veggies
On a completely different note, none of these pictures are mine. I just discovered WordPress’s free image library!
The California Girls hive needed split, we both agreed. The queen’s laying pattern was spotty, and they’d be more likely to get through winter with a locally born and mated queen. Or so we’ve been told.
We gathered the boxes and frames needed to make the split, but chose to check Buzzers’ Roost (II) first.
The hive was packed with bees, with many, many uncapped queen cups.
Last time we had a hive in similar condition, it was FreeBees. With them, we waited a few weeks to make a split, and they ended up swarming anyway.
Determined to avoid a similar error with Buzzers’ Roost (II), we adjusted our plan, and split the hive by taking out a few frames of brood and eggs, shaking in some nurse bees, adding frames of honey and pollen, and giving them sugar water and pollen patties.
We’ll check back in a few weeks and hope to see fresh eggs and larvae. If we don’t see this, we’ll make a decision whether to buy a queen or reunite them with their mother hive and let them swarm (and hope to catch it).
Both hives had tons of pollen, more than I’ve ever seen stored before in one of our hives.
Here are some pictures of Buzzers’ stores.
When we smoke the hive to inspect, the bees sometimes react by sticking their heads in the cells, supposedly to gorge on pollen and nectar in case they have to flee the danger. The little things on the bottom that look like Kix cereal are capped drone brood. More colorful pollen, along with glistening nectar. They were also capping honey, but apparently I didn’t get a picture of that.
There were a lot of bees. Nearly every frame was full.
Now we just have to hope the split raises a queen.
Next we turned to California Girls. They’ve also been busy raising babies, but fortunately weren’t quite as crowded as Buzzers.
Here’s a nice frame of brood. See the freshly capped honey at the top left and drone brood on the bottom?
The queen is laying better now. Look closely, and you’ll see the tiny eggs in almost every cell – much nicer than last inspection when she was laying unevenly.
You can also see some larvae in the lower left.
The picture below has everything but pollen! There’s nectar, a few capped brood cells, honey and eggs!
We also saw the queen, always a welcome sight!
And remember this?
And this?
Well, look at it now!
It’s the comb they started building down from the inner cover several weeks ago that we rubber banded to a frame. They’ve filled in almost the whole frame!
If you’re observant, you may notice something about the size of the cells. They’re bigger than usual, which means they’ve been built for drone brood.
This is something we’ll have to keep an eye on because varroa love drone brood, and we don’t want to encourage varroa in our hives. Also, we don’t need that many drones unless we were getting into some serious queen raising, which we’re not.
We did end up putting the honey super we’d intended for Buzzers on California Girls. There’s definitely a nectar flow on, and they’re doing well so we’re giving them space to store it all. It may come off when we split that hive, but that’s a judgment call we’ll make at the time.
On the “Decluttr Kym” front, I sorted out my jeans and am embarrassed to report I gleaned six pairs to donate without even having to think much about it.
And, lastly, the unrest here has caused me to realize our country can’t move forward until we finally admit we were founded on the backbreaking labor of slaves. I’ve heard people say, “That’s over a hundred years ago. It’s ancient history.”
But as a genealogist, I’ve learned a hundred and some years is not ancient history. It’s just a few generations back, and that history creates a culture, both familial and community, that directs our present.
We can’t forget this happened, and although I’m not sure what I can do personally, I know the first step is to learn more about my personal biases and not be afraid to call out others who express more overt racism.
I will start by reading (no surprise there) and forcing myself to sometimes be the unwelcome voice in the room.
The black granite represents the path of the plane’s descent toward its final resting place near Stoystown, Pennsylvania — less than 20 minutes flight from Washington D.C, the hijackers’ intended target.
Friends and family watched the investigation from this vantage point.
The Byrd and the Bees 