Adventures at Letchworth

Today I embarked on another adventure that took me away from the eager demands of familiar surroundings.  It sped me away to a hidden canyon beyond the Pennsylvania boarders and into the depths of New York State.  My Heavenly Father designed it this way for me so he would show me more of himself through his creation and word and I could rest in a different kind of way.

This adventure took place at Letchworth State Park, often called the ‘Grand Canyon of the East,’ and was filled with all the dangerous, wild beauty my soul craved: waterfalls, rapids, trails that wound alongside of cliffs, lonesome forests and squirrels and chipmunks.

My journey to the state park took two and a half hours with most of the time spent traveling the back roads of the New York countryside.  The ride was interesting enough.  Thrice I stopped and made sure I was on the right road, once I bypassed a road (the sign was hidden behind a building) and once I interrupted a flock of vultures feeding on the specialty of the day.  I blinked and missed the small town of Eagle, went through the town of Arcade and wondered if they are the acclaimed video game makers and even passed by a herd of gigantic windmills grazing on wind as they towered ominously over the trees.  I drove by a sign that begged me to caution for bears (only for a mile though!) while another sign cautioned me for horse and buggy.  In my travels I passed a variety of different road names: ‘Green Street’ (kind of like this one), about three Maple Avenues, Rock City Road, which according to mapquest should’ve been Erie Street (confusing but I still found my way) and my personal favorite--'Very Road’ (kind of ironic isn’t it?).

Then as I approached the state park and was within two miles of it, what should happen to block my path?  A train moving the speed of a fast turtle!  So I waited till the last car went by and drove into the park.  After I paid my entrance tariff, I received a couple catalogs and a map.

Letchworth State Park is perhaps best known for its three waterfalls: the Lower Falls, the Middle Falls and the Upper Falls.  I began at the Lower Falls and hiked towards the Upper Falls.  I ironically had to go down 127 stairs first to see the Lower Falls

The Easy way or the Hard Way?

Hopefully, it shouldn't surprise you but I took the 127 steps down and then back up...

Lots and lots of stairs!

But definitely worth the view...

One view of the gorge

The Lower Falls

Closer view of the Lower Falls

I saw a footbridge across a narrow part of the gorge so I explored it...

The Footbridge

Across the Bridge
An Adventure for Another Day

Looking Upstream from Bridge

A mere Dorm Administrator or a daring Adventurer?

After climbing back up the stairs I descended, I hiked towards the Middle Falls, which included more stairs and the 'Easy View' of the Lower Falls.  

Easy View of Lower Falls

I confess--the 'Easy View' of the Lower Falls was not that spectacular (you could barely see them).  I was glad I exerted a little sweat (fortunately no blood or tears) to see the 'hard' view of the Lower Falls.  

Soon the roar of the Lower Falls diminished and I found myself in a quiet woods, a lonesome forest.  On other days I'm sure it was robust with squirrels and chipmunks but on this particular day at this precise hour a calming quiet filled the forest.  When was the last time you heard quiet, not an eerie silence but a calm quiet?  It's been awhile for me.

The Lonesome Forest

A wonderful view awaited me at the forest's edge...

The Letchworth Canyon

And as I glanced further up river, I saw the Middle Falls in the distance...

Middle Falls from a Distance

I hiked for twenty or thirty more minutes and checked my map a couple more times before I came to the Middle Falls.

Middle Falls

Another View of Middle Falls

The Flower and the Falls

Plummeting to a Faint Rainbow

Compared to the hike from the Lower to Middle Falls, the trail from the Middle to Upper Falls was easy.  It led me beside views of the riverbed until I approached the Falls.

Upper Falls and the Railroad Track Bridge

Upper Falls

I sat down on a short rocky wall and read 1 Corinthians 3, my next chapter in my NT reading.  A phrase of a sentence leaped off the page and landed into my heart: "as the Lord assigned to each his task" (v 5).  The Lord has assigned me a task...while the specifics remain somewhat uncertain, the task itself is very, very clear to me...it's just a matter of finding out how to go about it.

One more little adventure must be noted here...

As my eyes captured the railroad bridge far above the Upper Falls, I thought, "There must be a great view up there."  So I began to hike up about fifty or seventy more stairs to reach the top and came across an old man smoking a cigarette.

"Can I get on the bridge?"  I asked.

"There are fences but you can get around them."  He replied.

I continued my hike to see how close or how far away I could come to at least look across the canyon.  When I reached the top, I found I could go underneath the bridge but sure enough, there were fences that bared my way to the tracks themselves.  So...

I decided not to trespass and headed back down the trail.  When I saw him again, he asked me, "Did you go up on top the bridge?"

"No." I replied.

He replied with a smile and handshake, "Coward."  Then he explained that a lot of people get in trouble up there because they are on the bridge when a train comes puffing along.  While it would be exciting to pretend I'm Superman and race against a train...I think I will exercise wisdom and not be an idiot. 

As I hiked back to my car parked at the Lower Falls, I thought about this last adventure.  Fences.  Boundaries. Commands.  Call them what you want.  The people who set the fences up did it for the tourist's good, not to rob them of fun.  They knew the dangers, pitfalls and deaths that have and would happen if they didn't bar the bridge with fences.  The same is true with God.  He has given us commandments for us for our good!

Was I a 'coward' for not venturing on the bridge as this man called me?  

Not by God's standard.  He measures a person very differently.

Perhaps this daring adventurer gained a touch of wisdom today.

I actually think I learned a very valuable lesson of life.

Dare all to love but listen to Him who dwells above.

Plus I really didn't want to pay a fine!

Until next the next adventure...

A Box Full of Memories

As my parents gear up to move to North Carolina within the next month or so, I reluctantly took a couple of boxes back to my dorm room at the Academy to sort through.  I had a vague idea that this box of past treasures would unleash some distant memories about people, places and things. 

And so I lifted the lid of the first box and my eyes fell on boring textbooks from my college days.  Kind of anticlimactic, isn’t it?   

So I pulled out a thick book entitled Microcomputing.  I remember taking the college course one semester only to find out the next semester they bought brand new computers and changed the entire course.  The next book was a very large algebra book.  I decided not to page through it and quickly set it aside.  Math and I respect each other.  I use it when I must but confess that I do not go in search of math problems for fun!

Then I came across something a little more exciting: a little shopping bag with several ‘folders’ of pictures in them.  I eagerly opened the first folder, wondering what pictures hid within.  As I viewed the pictures, memories began to flash through my mind of a D.C. trip with my youth group, a LIFE conference out in Colorado Springs with certain members of my youth group, pictures of my brother when he was very small (hard to believe he is married now and has a child!), some concert and pictures of clouds from an airplane (its not often you see the top of clouds and a world below from an airplane) and rainbows at various times.  My mind easily recalled most of the names of the people in my youth group and I began to wonder what happened to each of them. 

Where are they now?  Are they still following the Lord after twenty years?  Are they married?  Do they have families of their own?  Questions.  Ponderings.  Memories.

I set the pictures down and rummaged through the old gems again.  This time I pulled out a stack of statistics of when I played football, jr. high basketball and ran track.  Certificates, a handful of ribbons of various colors, copies of newspaper articles and pins to decorate some coat were stuffed near the bottom of this box—long forgotten by their owner.  Memories of certain games flooded my mind—our first jr. high basketball game where we lost 58 to 8 or my jr. high football games where we won all our games except the last, which we tied.   

Then I pulled out a peculiar treasure: a deck of ‘snake cards.’  Yup, I liked those slithering reptiles when I was growing up.  For some reason they always fascinated me though I could not tell you why.  I always wanted a pet snake but my mom always said, “You’ll have to keep it outside.” 

“Why?” I typically answered. 

“What if it escapes?” She typically answered.

So I never really had a pet snake.  I caught them occasionally, kept them for a day or so and then would let them go. 

Then came a stack of various magazines: some from my denomination, some religious ones and a couple of teenage magazines geared for the ‘average teenager’ (this was before cell phones, twitter, facebook and the internet—yeah, I know, I lived in the ‘stone age’ back then!)  I paged through one of the teenage magazines and came across an article entitled, ‘The Boredom Zone.’  Next to it was a little quote that read: “Most boring Sermon: In 1977, Rev. Tony Leyva preached to his congregation in West Palm Beach—for 72 hours.”  That’s a very long time to listen to a sermon, much less preach one!

Well, one way to combat boredom is to find a treasure chest (an old box in your attic or basement) from the past and rummage through it.  Let the items in those box trigger memories. If you have children, share the memories with them.  It might be a great way for you to share a bit of your life with them.