Yesterday, my Dad took me to town to purchase a pair of combat boots to hike in. nfortunately, we found out that I no longer wear boy’s sizes and men’s boots were out of range of Dad’s budget. We finally picked up a pair of work shoes at the Triangle Shoe Store. Dad wanted me to wear the shoes home, but I didn’t. The next morning while I was at services at Temple Israel, Dad hoofed it into town and picked up a pair of the new 3D socks at Bernies. They are keen and fit well.
We (Dad, I, and Pudgy) left after dinner at about 1:30. Destination: Nay Aug Wells.
I had never been there, but Dad said that I would like this hike. We went up Gibson Street to Harrison Ave. and over to Myrtle Street and then up to Little England. We saw two brightly colored cardinals along the way. At Little England, the city is tearing down the houses and there were large hauling trucks and a crane with a wrecking ball on the end of the crane instead of a hook. We crossed the bridge over roaring brook and went up (Ash?) Street. It was a nice sunny day. Dad told me that a hailstorm some years ago had smashed all of the glass at the Shultze’s Greenhouse. It was quite a mess.
We arrived at the Bunker Hill section of Scranton and continued straight up until we hit the Erie railroad tracks. First, we crossed a spur line. We turned left on the Erie tracks and Dad stopped to show me a culm dump where he found a nice fossil of a fern. Soon after, we came to a concrete opening. Dad said it might be an abandoned mine shaft. I went in for a short distance and Dad said that next time we would explorer it further. Soon we saw a road to our right and we climbed up to it and shortly thereafter we came to a concrete octagonal base of what once was some type of building. I climbed up and Dad took a picture of me on top of it. Soon our road crossed the tracks again and we left the road. There was a man and a woman ahead of us and we overtook them. The railroad bed went around a bend to the right and Dad told me to look for a path on the left which would take us to #7 Dam.
We followed the path and came to the road near the #7 buildings. There is a large metal cable across the road and the trees have grown right over the cable and buried it. The #7 dam was full.
While we were looking around, a train came up on the Lackawanna Line and one came over the trestle on the Erie Line. It reminded me of a model train in the storefront window of the Household Goods store on Spruce Street in town. We crossed below the dam and walked up the Lackawanna road bed. A passenger train overtook us and we waived to the engineer and passengers as the train went by.
Dad went on ahead. He had the topographic map rolled up and he was looking for a benchmark but he didn’t find it. Soon we saw several houses on Nay Aug Road. Gee, they have a really small schoolhouse (looks like one room and two out houses—one for boys and one for girls, I guess).
We passed the little village. Some men had a buzz saw and were cutting timbers (part of the foundation of an old farm house). Dad was surprised when he saw the installation at Nay Aug Wells. The flood had knocked in one end of the building. The roof was gone and the place was totally deserted. We left the tracks at the base of the railroad trestle. Someone dumped a lot of loose rock there, but we picked our way down. As usual Pudgy beat us to the stream bed. It is really beautiful here. We walked upstream on a large pipe. We passed a little creek on the other side of the stream. It was fast moving white water. We went up stream and found a nice spot to cook. I got a fire going while Dad went upstream exploring. When he got back with Pudgy, we ate (three hamburgers a piece and a can of tomato soup). Pudgy gulped down ½ can of Friskies dog food and some hamburger meat she begged from us.
It got dark while we were eating so as soon as we put out the fire we took off. Dad took me up to the trestle and showed me a milestone marker right at the end of the trestle. The trestle had a boardwalk on one side, but the trestle is high, long and you could see down between the boards. The moon was out of sight but the solid sky reflected a lot of light and it was surprisingly easy to see in the dark.