ALL TRAILS LEAD TO ICE CREAM

It never ceases to amaze me how our busy and hectic world seems to vanish from view when seen from the top of a mountain.  I know that there are cars and roads and houses down there...but Mother Nature always seems to engulf everything in her immense and raw beauty.  That beauty is what draws me, and so many  others, to our county and State parks and forests.  Just here, in Pennsylvania, our state parks and forests play host to about 40 million visitors each and every year.  All of these visitors naturally have some sort of impact on our state parks and forests.  Even if all of the rules and guidelines are strictly followed by every user, it is inevitable that there will be soil compression and litter from all of the foot traffic. Looking out over the valley in Michaux State Forest from a vista on Blueberry Trail.  Photo by Alex Raymond -- April 10, 2020 This year, to escape stay at home orders, many more people have ventured into the parks and forests...

The idea began after one of those Scholastic Book Fairs that we all remember from our childhood.  Elementary and Middle School libraries, all across the nation, were converted into mini-store promoting reading and selling books and other knickknacks to school aged children.  (As a side note...as times have changed these Scholastic Book fairs have gone the way of the Dodo bird.)  Sometime during my first few years of teaching I escorted a group of kiddos down to the mobile trailer that was temporarily serving as our school's library while the building was under construction and I spied a book of recipes.  What caught my eye was a children's book that outlined basic items that Lewis and Clark (and the Corps of Discovery) packed and ate while on their epic journey.  The seed for what would become one of my favorite parts of my school year was planted that day at the Scholastic Book Fair. Three very nerdy middle school teachers...Eric Gimbi, Dave Raymond, and Mike G...

Babicka means grandmother in Slovak...which is why (I assume) my brother and I referred to our Grandma Raymond as Baba.  Just five short miles from the Morosky household in Richeyville, PA, my grandmother, Mary Raymond, lived in a small house on Lowhill Road near the Monongahela River.  Just as the water tank overlooking Richeyville heralded  that our arrival at our Grandma and Grandpap Morosky's house was imminent...descending down Baba's Hill was indication that we were close to Grandma Raymond's.  Baba's Hill (officially known as Gillis Road) is a sketchy stretch of Pennsylvania, tar and chip, back country road that, as I remember it, is BARELY able to accommodate any sort of passing traffic. Wooden posts, linked together with rusty steel cables, were the only barrier between the road and steep, wooded, ravine that was just a few short feet away.  Baba's Road ended at an obnoxiously steep angle when it intersected with Lowhill Road....indication that grandmo...