The Susquehanna Valley RG had its rain-delayed kickoff run last Saturday. No rain and no delay this time – just an astoundingly clear day with superb visibility for enjoying the 70 miles of scenic Pennsylvania roads that Tracy and Jeff Lesher had prepared for us. We had two Buicks, two Overlands, and three Model A Fords.
- National Secretary Bob Ladd in his '28 Ford
- '13 Overland, '12 Buick and '30 Ford
A few miles into the tour we saw a couple of enormous generators, sitting on trailers, waiting to be installed by the local power company. The trailers had 64 wheels each. Getting these rigs from the railroad yard to the installation site must be a logistics problem for the Army!
- Gil Fitzhugh the Elder's Buick isn't up to pulling these trailers
The destination was a preserved section of an ancient, and mostly long-since-disappeared, canal. Originally proposed in the 17th century by William Penn, it was finally built in the early 1800s. It allowed goods to be transported much faster and cheaper than by wagons over terrible roads, but was in turn soon replaced by railroads, which were faster and cheaper yet. We got a boat ride through a tunnel, cut by Irish labor through a limestone ridge with hammer-driven star drills and blasting powder. Many of the drill markings are still visible. Providing adequate water was always a problem, since limestone is porous and the water seeped out through the bottom of the canal. A solution was to line the bottom of the canal with oaken planks, which rotted away in about 7 years and had to be replaced. That’s a whole lotta trees, and it takes longer than seven years to grow new ones!
- Going through a 180-year-old canal tunnel -
- - and coming out the other side
Clay Green was less than thrilled to find a huge self-tapping concrete screw in his tire in the canal parking lot. Skip Carpenter helped him change it.
- Clay Green shows a serious screw in his tire
- Skip Carpenter helps Clay change the tire
There was, of course, an ice cream stop.
Gil Fitzhugh the Elder