There has been a change in the breeze lately. Â Folks are realizing that by allowing the rich and the reckless to have access to our money, we’re enabling them. Â A smaller, local and //fiscally responsible// local or regional bank is vastly preferably to a large faceless entity who literally does not give a fuck about you or your life while they’re playing chicken with the US government, knowing that if they are big enough an irresponsible enough we’ll actually pay them to screw us over…I’d recommend a credit union if you have access to one!
Speaking of having some rich asshole shove both hands into your pockets, what if you’re in the market for a loan…or you want to invest some money? Â How can you do such a thing without entering the dirty and crooked world of finance? Â I’d recommend Prosper, but apparently they aren’t allowed to operate within Pennsylvania at the moment. Lending Club is a service that connects people who want to borrow money with people who want to lend money. Â You could even do both at the same time if the fancy struck you. Â How it works is that say 100 people each have $50, and they’re looking for somewhere reasonably safe to invest their money. Â You have an excellent credit score and a clean report, and qualify for perhaps a 8% loan. Â You’re looking for $5,000 for a used car. Â The lenders see your request and then can bid on your loan. Â If you’re a very qualified candidate you may so many people may bid on your request that they drive your loan rate lower than you’d initially qualify for based on your credit report. Â If you’re a risky candidate, you might have a rate at 15% or even higher. Â The entire thing is actually quite clever and works very well, basically inserting normal people into the position only bankers would have access to…cutting out the middle man and reinserting humanity into the equation. Â Oh, and you can make a buck or two if you are fortunate enough to have some extra cash laying around.
What if you’d prefer to be a little more altruistic in your lending? Â Kiva provides microloans to good people who simply don’t have enough money to get what they need to get done. Â On the surface it operates much like Lending Club or Prosper, but instead of a credit report they have field investigators who search out entrepreneur who need an infusion of money. Â I could explain in great detail how this can have an enormouse impact not only on the individual you loan to, but their entire community…but I’ll allow the Kiva website to do a better job.
We have freedom OF and freedom FROM religion. In no way, shape or form was this country founded on any single religion. This is a simple historical fact.
One of the drives that lead to the creation of this country was to get away from mandated state religions that were the norm in Europe, and set up a new state where people were free to worship (or NOT) whatever they chose in any form they chose. The attempt was to create a more perfect union. Notice the complete lack of references to Christianity? That is no coincidence.
It’s one thing to believe in whatever you want to believe in, it is entirely something else to be ignorant to the history of your own country and proclaim “THIS IS THE WAY IT IS, ALWAYS HAS BEEN, AND ALWAYS WILL BE”.
It is easy to believe anything you wish to be so when you are ignorant of the relevant history. We have freedom of and freedom from religion. In no way, shape or form was this country founded on any single religion. This is a simple historical fact.
One of the drives that lead to the creation of this country was to get away from mandated state religions that were the norm in Europe, and set up a new state where people were free to worship whatever they chose in any form they chose. The attempt was to create a more perfect union. Notice the complete lack of references to Christianity? That is no coincidence. It’s one thing to believe in whatever you want to believe in, it is entirely something else to be ignorant to the history of your own country and proclaim “This is the way it is, always has been and always will be.”
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Thanks, Sun Gazette, for sucking cocks so hard!  You removed my nod to Atheists for absolutely no reason!  You even removed the references from the virtual copy where there was no space or format limitation!  Fuck you too!
We FINALLY got around to hiking (some of) the Black Forest Trail. Ever since I hiked the whole loop with Brian Richardson as a kid in High School, I’ve wanted to go back. That time, I was young and hearty, lots of exercise with gym class in school, so even considering I smoked Marlboro Reds at the vistas and we got high every couple hours on the hike, I don’t remember it being terribly difficult. Well, the fourth day it ended up being a bit monotonous (as in, most of the stuff we hiked I couldn’t remember hiking it previously…may have been due to only eating ramen noodles and smoking marijuana for 40 miles OR maybe because of ten years of the trail being used haha!).
The first time, my pack was set for four days and three nights, I owned nothing geared towards lightweight backpacking and my pack weighed 42 pounds. This time, a much nicer “real” pack, lots of lightweight and small gear, and it was only 25 pounds. Kelley’s pack weighted 15 pounds, and she had an easy time of it. Girl is in good shape, I’m quite jealous…
I used this website as a resource for deciding to make this our first Black Forest Trail outing. I was looking for an overnight to hike with Kelley, and that this made the BFT a loop that started and ended at the same parking lot, in a distance that was (barely) manageable over two days…SOLD AMERICAN! I added the mile markers from the Black Forest Trail Guidebook to my photos so that you can reference what the camping available at mile 30.89 looks like, for example ;) I also provided a lot of additional commentary on a photo-by-photo basis, so feel free to flip through them one at a time either along with our after reading this account!
The first day started great, if a little scratchy: we wore shorts…more on that in a bit. Immediately starting out, we passed four middle aged men walking towards us. We said good day and one of them quipped “it was almost fun”. Undaunted, we crossed country to the top of the Callahan Run drainage, wishing I had worn pants due to the blueberry bushes growing over the path scratching at me constantly. We passed two college kids coming the other direction, they looked fucking delirious from exertion and it was still early in the day!  Seeing a trail register entry that correlated pretty well with them, they may have been from a college in New Orleans and when asked “would you hike the Black Forest Trail again” had entered “Hell no! Never! Never!” if I’m remembering correctly. Anyway, we descended into Callahan Run middle fork and AGAIN wished we had worn pants, as the stinging nettles (or as I like to call them “fucking nettles” or “god damn nettles”) were thick and right up against the path.   Thankfully they only sting and itch for a few minutes…
We ascended out of Callahan Run and along a ridge with a couple vistas, then descended into Naval Run. Naval Run was nice, but a little damp and cool feeling. It DID have a huge amount of camp sites though. The ascent out of Naval Run nearly killed me from heat exhaustion, but once up top I was once again dogged, enjoyed all of the vistas except for the White Birch vista, and we headed down into Little Slate Run. Near the bottom, the trail headed back up the ridge and I nearly burned the place down with rage. “What the fuck!” The last thing I wanted to do was climb higher, but sure enough we had a decent climb back up the ridge, then out and down a pretty steep descent into the actual Little Slate Run valley. By this time it was nearly 8:30 and I was EXHAUSTED. My body, which had been holding up reasonably well all day, finally failed, and my left knee tweaked. Thankfully it waited until we were almost to camp and it didn’t bother me the rest of the night.
We set up camp, ate, relaxed a bit and headed to bed, in reasonably high spirits. I was just glad to be horizontal. Kelley couldn’t sleep but once I got used to the noises in the woods I napped reasonably for four or five hours.
The next morning at camp was great, we got up around 6am (actually got up with the sun shining in at 5am, but lounged for a bit) and enjoyed how pretty the area was for a bit. 7:10am in the Little Slate Run valley:
I think we were the last sluggards out of the area around 8:30am (the lower camp sites were occupied so we were lucky to find anything available at all). Took 440mg of naproxen sodium and a 200mg caffeine tablet, and we ascended out of Little Slate Run. It wasn’t nearly as bad as I had anticipated, and my aches from the night before quickly loosened. After making it back up to the plateau, we had an easy 10 mile hike back to the car.  Well, it would have been easy but the aches slowly started returning.
I took another 440mg of naproxen sodium, and we continued out through a couple forest roads, the Pine Bog Trail, then the Blackberry Trail, and finally returning to the Black Forest Trail. We rested for a bit at this juncture, had a bite to eat, and I was really wishing we were back at the car and didn’t have nine more miles to hike. This sensation only got worse as the afternoon progressed ;)
We passed through a really neat open meadow with bogs and ponds in it, an area that was called the Barrens due to the soil having been destroyed by a forest fire, saw a spooky old pump house and a rattlesnake…and my knee finally gave out with about a mile left to go. We were descending slightly into Yellow Jacket Hollow and it tweaked three times in a row. The third tweak, it didn’t come back, and started feeling like someone had stabbed me. We stopped and rested at a campsite a little down the stream from the trail (a lot of campsites available in this general area, this small side stream on the Baldwin Branch of Young Womans Creek). Thankfully the rest of the trail was uphill as my knee doesn’t hurt nearly as much going uphill or on level ground as any downhill (no matter how moderate). We made it back to the parking lot and I was never so glad to hear the sound of automobile traffic in my life.  That said, I can’t wait to get my knee back in shape and hike the northern loop. Hopefully later this year!!!
We went canoe camping this year, a rare treat but increasing in frequency it seems. Started at Hamilton Bottom and we camped at ‘the island’. With the water being so high (the Cedar Run gauge read over 2 feet) the trip from Hamilton Bottom to below Waterville seemed to take no time at all, and the next day’s float from the island to our house went even quicker.
Putting in at Hamilton Bottom (map) added some much needed creek time to the first day. Also, you don’t have to pay the beer troll a toll…AND, the creek is much quieter without the hordes of people roaring by on motorcycles with no fucking mufflers on them.
The island campsite is getting a little old, wearing away. I’m actually surprised it has lasted as long as it has. These trees are the only things holding the place together:
Once the island has worn away, there is a rough camping site a few hundred yards up the creek from the island’s tip, as well as a rough site in a small pine plantation just across the creek from the island’s tip. The pine plantation site spooks me out for some reason though.
We took a bit of beer with us, ended up being about a six-pack short as once my beer was down to a six-pack and I was ready for bed, Kelley said “it’s too early!” and we dipped into the reserves. With all of the animals crawling around just past the fire’s reach, the sooner I could pull the covers over my head the better…I’m such a puss, considering I’ve camped here alone before. It really is true, the older I get the more of a pussy I am…BUT I SWEAR TO GOD, I was talking about how there were probably bears and mountain lions and coyote’s and as soon as I said the word coyote we both heard one bark on the west creek bank. I laughed out loud and was grateful it wasn’t sniffing at the lights edge, wondering if we had anything good to eat…yes, I am a puss. Pussy pussy puss puss…
Had a really nice time altoghether. Got to see carp spawning everywhere (and missed an amazing picture of a school looking bright blue in very shallow water…DOH!), saw a ton of ducks and other birds, an immature Bald Eagle below Waterville which roosted across from our camp over night (at least, it looked larger than the mature Golden Eagles I’ve seen), just a wonderful time in general.
Took one of our cast iron pans and made home fries for breakfast in garlic and olive oil. Really happy with the way it cooked on a campfire, and the experience seems to have improved the surface as well. But boy was the bottom sooty!!!
