Montreal's Cosmo Diner attracts a crowd

There's not much I don't like about Canada except maybe that it's too far away.  Of course, I don't have to pay the taxes our friends up north pay, but I don't have paid health insurance, so maybe it's a wash.
An extended weekend trip to French-Canadian Montreal included a visit to the Bio Dome, old town,  French language menus and street signs and hours and hours trying to decipher what the GPS unit was trying to tell us about making our way through this beautiful city.

Even with cameras, I wasn't rolled, beat up, hassled or harassed in center city. It was refreshing, wandering through a major city's downtown without feeling like a walking cash register. With all the cameras hanging around my neck, downtowns are generally not places in which I feel safe. Montreal, a little larger than Philadelphia and the second largest in Canada, boasts a pedestrian friendly old town section and never did I feel uncomfortable like I often do in downtowns, even in downtown York.

I like diners.  Really.  Would rather have breakfast at a diner than a classy restaurant any day.  Maybe the atmosphere is too antiseptic, maybe the wait staff seems a bit snobby. Maybe the prices are a bit much for a handful of potatoes and pair of eggs.

Whatever, the Cosmo diner was one of the highlights of the trip, as strange as that might sound. It was just a nice place. Rose Labelle's husband died a few years ago, and she went out to find work. She tried out as a waitress at Cosmo, and six years later she's still there. Only ten stools crowd the breakfast bar, and #11 customer waits until something opens up. Bubbly Niki Koulakis runs Cosmos, and put Niki and Rose together, mix in a few comedian customers, and the breakfast bar becomes a theater.

Some customers have been stopping in for 30 years, some are rookies--but only for a day.  I jokingly asked for my 'usual', after stopping for the first time the day before, and Niki promptly served up two eggs over easy with potatoes and brown bread. No one writes anything down; she figures the bill in her head.

The Cosmo isn't for everyone. If you're a germaphobe, or a U.S. health inspector, the Cosmo isn't for you. As my mother used to say, "It's clean enough to be healthy, dirty enough to be happy."  

Fall Foliage Excursions on the Ma and Pa Railroad

The Ma and Pa Railroad Heritage Village fall excursions take only about 45 minutes, but it's a nice way to spend Sunday afternoons at quaint Muddy Creek Fork and learn York County history.

Trains are a great way to see massive amounts of color without getting cold doing it. Check this web site for more train foliage excursions throughout the U.S.


Admission to the museum and mill is free, and adults pay only $5 for a work-train ride alongside the Muddy Creek, and kids are $3.

Mark and Lana Blevins of Red Lion and 10-year old son effervescent  Teddy volunteer every other week at the railroad, running the train, leading tours through the mill, or as cashier at the museum/refreshment bar. 

Sullivan County's Fall Festival a victim of flooding

The Annual Sullivan County Fall Festival in Forksville, Pa., was a victim of late summer/early fall floods, and the annual event that was scheduled for this weekend was cancelled. The festival usually attracts thousands of people because of the area's spectacular fall color (therefore, the Flaming Foliage Festival the weekend before), an art show, lumberjack competitions, kids activities. The You Tube video above shows the roaring waters from Hurricane Irene near Forksville and the town's covered bridge. The photo above shows nearby Ricketts Glen State Park, still my favorite for color and a day's exercise, hiking up and down the glen.

This from the website--"Take the Falls Trail and explore the Glens, which boasts a series of wild, free-flowing waterfalls, each cascading through rock-strewn clefts in this ancient hillside. The 94-foot Ganoga Falls is the highest of 22 named waterfalls."

The falls trail was closed for a period because of flooding, but is now open. Snow usually happens early on the Ricketts Glen mountain, making for a beautiful contrast of color and pure white snow.

Lake Williams down 15 feet

Work is beginning on the Lake Williams dam, but the state-mandated improvements were delayed somewhat because of hurricane Irene and the drenching tropical storm Lee. The dam is in perfect working order, and the work is strictly for future flood protection. The 15' foot drawdown of the lake provides some interesting images, looking somewhat post apocalyptic or something from the dry American southwest.

From the York Water Company's web site--
"The State DEP is requiring that all large dams must have a spillway capacity so that the “Probable Maximum Flood” or PMF will safely pass thru the dam without damage. Lake Williams spillway currently has a capacity of 35,000 Cubic Feet per Second (CFS) and Redman 65,000 CFS. Both dams must be able to pass a 135,000 CFS flood event. For perspective, Hurricane Agnes was a 16,000 CFS flood at the dams.

The whole project will take about 2.5 years. We’ll start with minor work in August, 2011, such as drain work. We will need to lower the lake 15’ for a period of about 4 weeks in September, 2011 for this work."

At top-- fisherman David Flint, York, watches a boater finally get his boat into the water after a long, extended walk from the Lake Williams docks. The lake is down about 15' for dam maintenance; the docks are dry and a long way from the water's edge.

Below left-- Calvin Brooks, Jacobus, spends a lot of his free time fishing, he says. With Lake Williams drawn down about 15', he finds access to parts of the lake he's not had before unless he was in a boat.

Say you win a life-size bobblehead doll...

Chad Neiman won the life size bobblehead doll of the York Revolution mascot Downtown.  It weighs about 150 pounds, barely fits through the doors.

What does one do with the prize?

Holler hoppin' in Brown County, Indiana

Finding a site from which to hang a zip line in flat Indiana is a challenge, but Team Effect strung a few cables over some hollers in the southern end of the state to start what they hope is the newest, best thing-- Holler Hoppin'.

Biking through Cleveland and Philadelphia

Now, this is impressive--
Finished up a road trip on Sunday, after biking (peddle, not motor) through Cleveland, Philadelphia, Charlottesville, Spring Grove and Dublin. Not so impressive-- Sharing names with larger cities throughout the world, these tiny burgs are scattered along U.S. route 40 from Richmond to New Palestine, Indiana.

Now, brother-in-law Mike and I aren't spandex-clad, $2,000 bike demons. We are a step below recreational bikers, and we wander and struggle, rather than zoom. The nearly 70 miles in one day shocked us both. North of Indianapolis, the state is flat as a table top, but the south is covered with hills, none of which are big enough to notice while driving a car, but definitely something to be climbed on a bike--at least by bikers at our level of conditioning. 

Later in the week, we visited Story, a tiny town of just a few buildings, built around the Story Inn. From the website--

A quaint village founded in 1851, nestled in the hills of southern Indiana, a place known for its weather-beaten barns, clapboard churches, covered bridges and splendid fall foliage. In its heyday (1880-1929) the village supported two general stores, a nondenominational church, a one-room schoolhouse, a grain mill, a sawmill, a slaughterhouse, a blacksmith’s forge and a post office.

 The Inn is indeed weather-beaten, with antique gas pumps at its front porch (still showing 40-cents per gallon), attracting the trendy set, weddings and other special occasions. The sheet metal front is rusted and worn, and paint has apparently never touched the building front. The dinner menu boasts bison and duck (the least expensive entree choice at $22), artichoke dip and mussels. Definitely not for those of us with Wendy's or Olive Garden budgets or appetites. Plenty of picturesque antiques and old buildings make the site worth visiting.

Not far from Story is Pikes Peak, Indiana. Legend says a citizen of nearby Columbus was headed to Colorado's more famous Pikes Peak to homestead, and wrote on the side of his wagon "Pikes Peak or Bust". He 'busted' at present-day Pikes Peak, Indiana-- less than 20 miles away. Colorado's Pikes Peak elevation is over 14,000 feet, Indiana's is only 600 feet. Don't look for Pikes Peak, Indiana on most maps-- it's not there. Some words, like 'Pikes Peak' and 'Indiana' just shouldn't go together.

Leaf peepers will begin to flood into the area soon, but spots of color are already found in Brown County State Park.