The Morgantowner: Franklin and Fulton Counties, Part Two : Along Route 16

Have you ever had a day when you planned exactly what you wanted to do, and the weather and traffic worked well, and you were able to do everything? Me neither, except for December 14, 2021. I had planned to visit Pennsylvania Route 16, across southern Franklin County from Tuscarora Mountain on the west to the Blue Ridge on the east, through the towns (boroughs in Pennsylvania) of Mercersburg, Greencastle and Waynesboro to Blue Ridge Summit on the Maryland line.

The weather was way too warm for mid-December (as it has been through most of December in the Middle Atlantic states), about 55 in the afternoon from just below freezing in the morning. I had breakfast at the motel, then headed out about 9 west on U.S. 30 to Fort Loudon at the base of Tuscarora Mountain, then south to the birthplace of James Buchanan, the United States President from 1857 to 1861, the years leading up to the Civil War. The plaques there say that Buchanan's father ran a stop for people heading over the mountain, the "frontier" after the American Revolution. People needed help getting over the mountain. The house where Buchanan was born is no longer there, but there is a monument to Buchanan.

I headed southeast on Route 16 to Mercersburg. There is a historic district in the center of town, the Mercersburg Academy, where James Buchanan went to school, and the Lane House from 1828, where Harriet Lane, Buchanan's niece, was born. She served as hostess in the White House for her bachelor uncle. I don't have a pic of the Lane House.

From there, I continued to Greencastle, a more upscale town, where there is also a historic district, containing an old-fashioned non-chain department store. I walked around in the warming weather.

By lunchtime, as I planned, I was in Waynesboro, the largest borough on Route 16. There is a several block long commercial and historic district. I found a few restaurants, but they were all closed at noon on a Tuesday. I finally spied Nikki's on Main Street near the center of town. No one was in there, and I thought it might be closed too, but the door was open and I walked in. It seemed an Asian fusion place with Kim-chi burritos. I don't know. I got a chicken ramen bowl, made with chicken broth. It wasn't cheap at $16.99, but it was huge and delicious, with chunks of chicken, noodles, scallions, green, um... something, not too salty. It was better than Grandma's chicken soup. A few more people came in after me. I wandered around the historic sites in town, and found suburban housing tracts, the reason why this county is included in Baltimore-Washington. It's far to the central cities, but fifty-four miles to Gaithersburg in Montgomery County and Owings Mills in Baltimore County.

I found out that Route 16 was the road from the frontier mountains, heading southeast through Waynesboro to Westminster or Emmitsburg, Maryland, then to Baltimore, the closest tidewater port city, by way of Reisterstown Road, near where I grew up.

I headed to Blue Ridge Summit, on the Maryland Line, where there is a library in a former railroad station. Camp Louise, the Jewish girls' camp that was paired with Camp Airy, the camp for boys that I attended in the early '60s, had Blue Ridge Summit, Pennsylvania as its post office, even though the camp was in Maryland.

I went north from there to find Penn State, Mont Alto, set up as the forestry school for the Penn State system. Mont Alto Park was Pennsylvania's first state park. I drove past there to the Appalachian Trail, along the Blue Ridge. I found a place to park just off the road, and determined to walk fifteen minutes up the trail. The trail is narrow and rocky, and I'm not in great shape, but I did it, snapping some pics along the way.

From there, I drove back to the motel and crashed for an hour. I had figured out where Panera is located and ordered from the counter (not the touch screen). I sat in a corner away from others. Many of the people who came in had ordered carry out to pick up.

I was happy that I checked off everything I wanted to do for the day, that the weather was beautiful (good for me, bad for the planet), that I learned a lot, had a good meal, and didn't get lost.

Wednesday, I drove back west across Franklin County to Fulton County, where I spent a few hours before heading home.