Come Fly With Me ...

“Come fly with me, let’s fly, let’s fly away …

We’ll just glide, starry-eyed …

Weather-wise it’s such a coo-coo day …”

      “Come Fly With Me”

           ~ 1958 popular song composed by Jimmy Van Heusen with lyrics by Sammy Cahn, written for the great Frank Sinatra. It was the title track of Sinatra’s 1958 album of the same name.

A sweet Cabbage White Butterfly flutters toward a buddleia bush – also called summer lilac – on a perfect August afternoon along the Delaware & Lehigh National Heritage Corridor (D&L Trail), Slatington, Pennsylvania, near The Lehigh Gap.

In the shadow of the Kittatinny Ridge, also called Blue Mountain, The Lehigh Gap is a crossroads where the Lehigh Gap Nature Center’s trails connect two historic trails ~ the Appalachian Trail and the D&L Trail. 

The Appalachian Trail, a foot path, follows the ridge on both sides of the Lehigh Gap, running 1,245 miles south to Georgia and 930 miles north to Maine. Running from Wilkes-Barre to Bristol, the D&L Trail passes through the Lehigh and Delaware rivers and their canals in Pennsylvania.

 

Safe Passage ...

“My home is in Heaven. I’m just traveling through this world.”

   ~ Billy Graham

   ~ 1918-2018

 ~ American evangelist, prominent evangelical Christian figure, and ordained Southern Baptist minister who became well-known internationally in the late 1940s. One of his biographers has placed him “among the most influential Christian leaders” of the 20^th century.

I spotted this “Jesus 2024” sign in front of Friedens United Church of Christ, Slatington, Pennsylvania and had to stop to photograph this uplifting sight as a car sped by on Route 873 on a late May evening in this election year.

In these tumultuous times especially, it is a reminder that when all else is failing, Jesus is still there for us, and a powerful reminder of the hope that Jesus brings as we travel through this world.

 

Winter Gap ...

 “Is not January the hardest month to get through? When you have weathered that, you get into the gulf-stream of winter, nearer the shores of spring.”

                      ~Henry David Thoreau

                           ~ 1817-1862

The Lehigh Gap Bridge spans a frozen Lehigh River as the light of a looming late January sunset reflects in the icy waters and shadow dances on the Kittatinny Ridge, also called Blue Mountain, at Lehigh Gap in this painterly, HDR image.

The Lehigh Gap in Slatington, Pennsylvania, is a crossroads where the Lehigh Gap Nature Center’s trails connect two historic trails – the Appalachian Trail and the Delaware and Lehigh Heritage Corridor Trail (D&L Trail).

The Appalachian Trail, a foot path, follows the ridge on both sides of the Lehigh Gap, running 1,245 miles south to Georgia and 930 miles north to Maine. Running from Wilkes-Barre to Bristol, the D&L Trail passes through the Lehigh and Delaware rivers and their canals in Pennsylvania.

The Lehigh Gap Bridge was built in 1930 and rehabilitated in 1984.

Wheeling Through Winter ...

“It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade.”

                ~ Charles Dickens

                    ~ 1812-1870

The temperature soared to 73 degrees and snow still sugared the ground on a beautiful mid-March afternoon when I spotted this man wheeling his way along the Delaware & Lehigh National Heritage Corridor (D&L Trail) on an ATV bike at Lehigh Gap.

In the shadow of the Kittatinny Ridge, also called Blue Mountain, the Lehigh Gap in Slatington, Pennsylvania, is a crossroads where the Lehigh Gap Nature Center’s trails connect two historic trails – the Appalachian Trail and the D&L Trail.

The Appalachian Trail, a foot path, follows the ridge on both sides of the Lehigh Gap, running 1,245 miles south to Georgia and 930 miles north to Maine. Running from Wilkes-Barre to Bristol, the D&L Trail passes through the Lehigh and Delaware rivers and their canals in Pennsylvania.