Time to catch up on the last few days' pictures, since I've been camping in the Pennsylvania wilderness since Thursday. Hence, the following three photos happen to all be from the wonderful state of PA (rather than Ohio).

08/19/10

This first picture was taken around mid-afternoon on Thursday, once our campsite was all set up. I was camping in a small, quiet, beautiful campground called Beaver Meadows in the Allegheny National Forest with my boyfriend, Zack. That's him in the chair waving at me. Because the first night we were there was technically a week night, the campground was almost completely deserted. It was just a really nice place, even when the "weekend camping rush" showed up our second night there, Friday. No one was in a spot any closer to us than probably about a quarter of a mile down the road, and even if they had chosen the spot directly next to ours, the sites are so spread out that we probably still wouldn't have seen or heard them. I'd recommend this gorgeous campground to anyone - it was well worth the three hour drive.

08/20/10

This is a picture of the gorgeous lake that Beaver Meadows Campground is named after. The picture doesn't do it justice, but surrounding the lake are meadows filled with goldenrod just starting and Queen Anne's Lace. The meadows are then surrounded by the Allegheny Forest. Beautiful.

I loved the reflections of the sky in the water - I love water or sky (or in this case, water AND sky) pictures in general, which I'm sure will soon be made clear. :)

08/21/10

I didn't do a very good job of taking a picture of this place because quite frankly, it's only day 3 and yes, this project already slipped my mind (oops). I was only taking a picture to remember the name of the market. I know it doesn't look like much, but this was the coolest little place of off SR 66 in PA that we saw on our way into the campground (but were in too much of an excited rush to stop in until we were reluctantly on our way back home this morning). First of all, look at the name. Zack and I spent a number of minutes trying to figure out how to pronounce it. Za-cherr-ells? Zak-ayrls? Who really knows. It was the last name of the elderly couple that owned the shop, which I know because they had a picture of the two of them posted on the wall behind the counter, which I thought was really sweet. Second of all, we were driving through the boonies and yet this place was pretty freaking crowded, so we knew it must be good. You could even see the actual farmland right behind the building (again, picture-taking skills would have been better here had I remembered I'd be posting this) where the produce sold here was grown - how cool is it to actually SEE where your food is coming from? Although we didn't buy any produce here, we got a freshly baked cinnamon bun to eat in the car as breakfast for only $1...and it was AMAZING. What was even more amazing, though, was the reaction of the elderly man running the register when he rang up the treat - "Eh...how much are them suckers?" as he turns it over in his hands. How great is this guy?! I love PA. We smiled and told him it was one dollar as marked and were sent on our merry way. Those are the kinds of people we dealt with throughout the whole trip - honest, trusting folk who really are just trying to make a living. You don't find that too much around Akron: although I love the city, it does tend to have the hurried/suspicious/big city feel in pretty much any consumer-friendly establishment.

I've made up my mind after this trip - I want to live in the middle of nowhere on a farm when I'm older. With goats. I really love goats.