The Morgantowner: Cumberland County, Pennsylvania

I visited Carlisle, the county seat of Cumberland County, and several smaller places in the county September 4 and 5. I feel like I've been crazy busy and more-than-usually distracted since then. I stayed home today with the intent of working on my projects, including this one.

According to the algorithm I invented, Cumberland County was worth a 24-hour trip: it's less than 200 miles from Morgantown to Carlisle, and fewer than 450,000 people live in the county. Still, this is one of the larger and most historic counties near here, 192 miles away. I covered what I could in 24-hours.

It would have been easier if I had left home at 9, as I planned, but it was 10:20 when I finally left. I stopped for lunch at a semi-fast food noodle place that shares a footprint with a coffee place on the parking lot of the mall in Halfway, near Hagerstown, in Washington County, Maryland. Cumberland County is just across the Susquehanna river from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania's state capital. Like Hagerstown, it lies along I-81.

The Usual Chain has an unusual branch in the center of Carlisle. I was there about 2:30 and parked on High Street, as in Morgantown, the major artery in town. The meters give you fifteen minutes free, after that you have to pay. There was an open-air market starting at three right in the center of town. I was there just before, and co-eds from Dickinson College, a few blocks away, were about to make pizza and sell veggie-flavored popsicles. Meanwhile it was 90 F. out, and I was exhausted. I checked into the hotel, and moved my car to a city garage behind the motel. With a sticker, I only had to pay $4.50 to park for a day.

After a nap, I dined at a café on High Street with signs welcoming everyone, specifically LGBT people. A nice touch. I had a decent sandwich, and continued on my way west to Dickinson College. The campus is lovely, wooded, with benches and hammocks scattered about. On a warm, windless night, lots of students were out, congregating in small groups around campus.

I learned that most of Carlisle is in a historic district, and that it was occupied by Confederate soldiers in 1863, who soon moved on to Gettysburg. I was jealous that High Street in Carlisle has a movie theater and an independent bookstore.

I overplanned Thursday. I was supposed to go home after visiting several places in the county, and taking a detour 90 miles to Owings Mills, Maryland, outside of Baltimore. It being Elul, the month before Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur on the Jewish calendar, I thought I would visit my parents at the Maryland Veteran's Cemetery. It occurred to me that this would be more than 300 miles driving, and that I wouldn't get home until 8 P.M. I considered stopping at my sister's in Maryland, then leaving for home the next morning. I decided not to risk morning and evening rush hour traffic around Washington and go ahead and bomb home.

I drove first to Shippensburg, at the southwestern end of the county. I missed the college there, but found Widow Piper's Tavern from 1735, and the Shippen House from 1750, added to and remodeled since then.

I headed south and east to Pine Grove Iron Works, in Dickinson Township. The furnace dates from around 1770. It is now in a park, and the Appalachian Trail runs through there on a rare flat stretch next to a stream. I walked a bit, and then drove back to Carlisle Barracks, just outside of Carlisle, and still a Federal installation after more than 200 years. I needed a pass to get in. They called
somewhere, copied my driver's license, and looked me up on a computer before they decided I was okay to visit. This was the site of the Indian School where Jim Thorpe was educated, probably why he is buried now in the northeast Pennsylvania town that bears his name. The Barracks is a sprawling post, and one can only take pictures along The Quad, the green space in the center of the installation.

I stopped for lunch in Mechanicsburg, more what I expect of a small town in Pennsylvania, pretty and historic, but not trendy or touristy. I had a pizza and diet cola (not bad) at a neighborhood place before heading to my last stop, Capital City Mall in Camp Hill, along the Susquehanna. I never did get to the river, but I was jealous that the mall has a gigantic branch of that (formerly) ubiquitous upscale department store. I walked a loop through the mall and headed out, eventually onto I-83 south, a poor excuse for a highway. I left the county at 2:20, about the time I entered the day before. I drove past York and into Maryland.

By 3:45, I was at the Maryland Veteran's Cemetery. I didn't have much to say to my parents this year. I took some pics of the grounds, and two groundskeepers stopped by and asked if they could do anything for me. I told them why I was there, and asked why my parents' stone was so much darker than many of the others. They said they had flooding this year, and there are geese who poop on the stones. Great. They offered to clean up the stone, and maybe they will. I don't expect to be back there until next year.

I left the cemetery about 4:30, hit lots of traffic on the Baltimore Beltway and I-70 west, thinking how close I was to where I grew up and to the schools I attended so many years ago. I know there were back roads I could have figured out that might have saved time. Still, I took the Interstates and got home close to eight P.M.