Susquehannock State Park...

Yesterday afternoon, on a beautiful day, one of my "oldest"  (tee-hee) friends and I took an afternoon excursion to Susquehannock State Park.  It's a beautiful park/overlook close to where I grew up in the southern end of Lancaster County.

Disclaimer...rant ahead...

The "southern end" has lots of gems that people who live in the central or northern end of the county have never been to.  I remember as a teenager, many people would say I lived in the "boondox" or "way down there", so far away.  But they didn't know what they were missing.  Ok, enough of my rant...  :)

A bit of background...the Susquehanna River is the longest river on the east coast, and flows through Pennsylvania, draining into the Chesapeake Bay, and then the Atlantic Ocean.

Looking south, if you enlarge the photo you can see the Peach Bottom Nuclear Power Plant on the west (right) side of the river...

looking north...

You can see Peach Bottom more clearly on this picture.  There were lots of boaters and jet skiiers enjoying the water yesterday...

We took a short "hike" ...

...to another overlook where we could see the Holtwood Hydroelectric Plant below us.  In the distance to the north is the Norman Wood Bridge, which crosses the river to York County...

The wineberries were beginning to ripen...

My friend Sue and I...

She and I grew up together  and I'm glad we've been able to keep in touch.  She's a rockin' school teacher!  I used to always remind her when we were kids, that I was "older" than her.  A whopping 4 months older, but I was a year ahead of her in school because of when our birthdays fell in the year.  Now I'm reminded that I really am older.  Ha!  Love ya, Sue!

Sunday Afternoon Stroll...v 2.28.16...

We haven't taken many Sunday afternoon strolls lately, but yesterday was so beautiful that we just couldn't stay at home!  Neither could a lot of other people!

We met my sister and brother in law at the Pinnacle Overlook in Holtwood. It's a nice place to get a great view of the Susquehanna River, between the Safe Harbor Dam and the Holtwood Dam...just about thirty minutes from our house.

The mighty Susquehanna was quite muddy yesterday!  I guess there has been a lot of rain and melting snow lately.  But it's still beautiful...

Binoculars come in handy...

...as do cameras...

We also did a short, easy hike...

After we had seen what we wanted to see at the Pinnacle, we headed across the Norman Wood Bridge to Lock 12.  We drove north along the river until we reached a parking area close to the west side of the Holtwood Dam.  I had been there before, but never when all of the gates were open the whole way across the dam to let water over.  What a powerful force water is! Here's a short video to give you the full sound effects of the rushing water...

If you click on the links at the top of the post, you can read about the Hydro-electric plant that you see here across the dam...

We walked a little farther north, and got a different view from the lake above the dam.  From where I was standing to take this picture, I could feel the spray from the water!

My Dad used to run with the local fire company, and they were often called to assist with river rescues.  People would wade out to the rocks below the dam and get stranded when the water levels would suddenly rise.  There are warning sirens before water is let over and levels rise, but some folks don't listen!  There have also been times when boaters have been in this lake above the dam and either lost power and went over the edge, or weren't paying attention to how close they were to the dam and didn't get stopped. Some lucky ones have survived, but others have not been so fortunate. The fall is about fifty feet, and there are a lot of rocks in the water below...

Before we left, we spotted this in a tree in the woods behind us...

It appears to be a bald eagle's nest!  We didn't see any eagles flying around...only buzzards...but they are known to be in this area...

It was a nice afternoon be to outside, and hopefully there will be many more days like this to come!