Long Weekend Back East

I just returned yesterday from four days back in the old stomping grounds, visiting my dad and sister in the East Coast megalopolis. It is always great to get back home to the land of my people. The heart of the weekend was spent attending my eighth NEARFest (Northeast Art Rock Festival) - eight obscure but great musical acts over two days, in Bethlehem PA, with an old friend (attending his ninth) and, for the first time, brother in law and nephew, who appear to have immensely enjoyed the guitar shredding and such that went on over the weekend.

I will review the events of NEARFest in a future post, and stick to the rest of the trip here... On the way East, I departed from the usual PA Turnpike boredom at the Somerset exit and dropped south on US 119 (I think) south to I-68. Along the way, there are large numbers of windmills planted along the mountain range, catching the winds wafting along up there above the mountain tops. My understanding is that this installation is the largest wind farm east of the Mississippi. I also read somewhere that the power from these windmills, which can light 8,200 homes, is lighting the torch of the Statue of liberty.
Moving on along I-68, I came to a familiar (to me) sight, Sideling Hill, an incredible feat that involved cutting and blasting a notch into a mountain to let the highway pass through. I can remember when what was then U.S. 40 (the National Road), had to traverse way up one side and down the other of this elevation. Now you can breeze right through or stop at the traveler's center and gaze at formations that date back, according to what I've read, 340 million years or so. For the geologically inclined, there is more on Sideling Hill , which is actually pretty interesting, at this URL.
I was happy to be eastbound, as it appeared that the entire East Coast was westbound. I suspect it is like this every Friday night. Have these people come to terms with the fact that gas is up to four bucks a gallon?
Once at my destination, I stayed with my dad in a fascinatingly large community of senior citizens. There are multiple large apartment buildings connected by glassed-in bridges - you can walk all over the place without ever going outside. But if you want to venture into the elements, there is a nifty nature trail. I didn't get the time to check it out, but I would like to some time.
My sister sprang (sprung?) for dinner at a local diner that is a family favorite and a tradition. Usually, I bring half the meal home in a styrofoam box. Somehow I ate all the moukassa they could throw at me, plus we split this key lime pie (and this is how it was presented to me by my loving sister).
I also got to spend some time with her family out at their house. She is known throughout the blogosphere for her love of frogs, and here is one of her froggy residents, basking pondside - followed by one flower picture from her nearby garden.
And, yeah, here's that pug of hers named Bella. Frankly, she's almost as crazy as my daughter's dog, but that's just part of their puppylike charm. It's only a phase... (I did not get as good a shot of Athena, the Boston that lives in the same place).
As previously reported by my sister, while we were eating at her house, someone hollered that there was a rainbow outside. We scrambled out and, of course, both Sis and I fumbled for our Canons. Here is one of my shots. I liked the bird up there.
Here's the thing, to me, about us and rainbows: Several days after my mother died about 12 years ago, as we were preparing to take off back to Ohio, there was a vivid rainbow. We all stood out on the road and stared at that spectrum of color as our next door neighbor (actually, my NEARFest buddy's mother) exclaimed that "It has significance!", and it felt as if indeed it did have significance at that moment. So here we were, nearly twelve years later, my dad, sister, her family, and me, out there, again, staring at a rainbow. As I thought about it while driving back home on the PA Turnpike the next day, it seemed like just a coincidence, maybe, but it helped trigger a powerful memory of my Mom right there in the context of her family.
Anyhow, the trip home was accomplished with speed and efficiency, shooting through the tunnel, and taking another look at those Somerset windmills (this shot below was taken without really checking the camera, as I felt it better to keep my eyes on the road while squeezing the shutter button at random, pointing the camera in the general direction of the windmills...)
All in all, a great road trip, a good time for some out-of-context thinking, checking up on the kinfolk, and clearing the brain for a few brief days. And good to get home, too!