A beautiful day today for meandering across the countryside…..yes would have been nice to shoot in this but nicer to travel with no rain.

Went down Old Frederick Road this morning on our way out of Thurmont and took a small detour onto Utica Road to the Utica Mills Covered Bridge. The original one was built in 1850 and originally spanned the nearby Monacacy River. It was washed away in a storm in 1889. It is said that locals gathered the remaining pieces and reconstructed the 101ft long Burr arch truss bridge at its present location crossing Fishing Creek.

These are really cool, one of three in the area, they are all painted red. Apparently there used to be 34 of these around Frederick County.

I think they are gorgeous but wonder why they felt the need to cover them? Will have to look that up.

 

We are heading south to Harpers Ferry, West Virginia and Winchester, Virginia

Harper's Ferry National Historic Park – more Civil War history and where the first large-scale Federal occupation began in February 1862. Harper's Ferry remained an important communication and supply line for the Union and keeping the northern Confederate invasions out.

 

This is the place where you can see two rivers and three states merge.

Parking the car, we then took a shuttle bus down into the town of historic buildings, museums and landscape vantage points – no parking down in the town. Buses run every 12-15mins.

St Peters Church, the only one that operated during the Civil War I'm told, not sure whether that was just this area or in all regions(?).

The bus trip had a small tour guide playing over the speaker system giving you a brief overview of the town both past and present. The Winchester and Potomac Railroad ferried goods to both sides of the war.

The small canal off to the side of the road used to have boats and ferries going down it, using as a bypass to the rapids on the shanendoah.

The canals also diverted water down to the mills and factories. A lot of stone for the buildings mills etc came from this immediate area. We passed the ruins of one of the mills and the canal walls that have been built from the rock.

 

Into the town we pass some fabulous old buildings and went into the dry goods stores, some of the buildings have exhibits in them.

 

We walked past the John Brown armoury building and down to the view of the river. Took a quick walk across the rail bridge and back again.

 

In and out of buildings, housing museum artefacts and an I nsight to history.

 

We scaled the stone stairs to the St Pauls Church and then I went beyond to Jefferson's Rock to see the view – three states, two rivers. The decline is much easier back past the Episcopal Church ruins. It made for a nice snapshot back through to the river and the railway tunnel beyond.

 

On to Winchester but feeling slightly worn, we hit Hobby Lobby for some haberdashery, stopping the big in Salem, Virginia, we are heading for Tennessee.

Kat xo