Fall 2023 Roadtrip Day 2
This is a multi page adventure. To read from the start please visit the Day 1 post! Otherwise, enjoy! And feel free to comment.
We left Swain quite early, and began a beautiful drive in the morning. We navigated down to I-99 and headed South towards Williamsport, PA. We then followed along the valley towards Lock Haven and the ridges were super evident. I always love looking at the map of this part of Pennsalyvania, as these mountian ridges and valleys are so super interesting to look at. But from the ground, in person, they are even more interesting. It is like you are in a long linear world with no escape on either side. Reminded me of a linear video game kind of where you could only go forward.
State College was the stop for a trip to Walmart and Lunch, and that town got my internal compass so turned around - only because I had gotten off at the wrong exit and because of this, my expectations as to where I would find the resturants was all turned around. I was tired and irritable by the time I got there, but food and a caramel frappichino from McDonalds helpped.
We made our way to Horseshoe Curve where we spent some time waiting but ended up seeing a pair of helper locomotives travel downhill and a beautiful mixed freight train travel up hill. We then headed to our destination for the night, Tunnel Inn, which is a lovely little hotel right on the edge of a tunnel.
Horseshoe Curve has always been a destination for me to attempt to visit. So it was for sure fun to visit this famous location. If we had time I would of visited the yard and shop in Altoona as well. But alas, I decided that wasn't quite as high of a priority.
Lots of snap track sections along the track gave me a hint something was going on. On talking with Bob the owner of the Tunnel Inn, it turns out they are replacing the track in the tunnel, and they cant do it with a normal track layer, so they are doing it with panels. The train activity at night was quite high.
We went to Vitos Pizza or 'CP Vitos'. It was the best veal sandwhich I have ever had. Slept well, and needed it, I was quite tired.
Whisperin's Thoughts:
We went to the Horseshoe Curve. We stayed about an hour and a half. First saw two helper engines travel to our right down hill. Then, about an hour later saw the train, with the helper engines, travel from right to left, uphill. We were surrounded by a train! We were in the middle of the curve. In the middle, you could look out and see the train on either side of you. There were 194 steps to get up to the horseshoe curve.