Seagulls Over The Delaware ...

“The gull sees farthest who flies highest.”

 ~ from “Jonathan Livingston Seagull”

   ~ 1970

  ~ by Richard Bach

   ~ born 1936

Seagulls take flight over the Delaware River on a beautiful & mild mid-December afternoon facing the historic town of Phillipsburg, New Jersey.

The historic Northampton Street Bridge, commonly called the Free Bridge, can be seen from my vantage point across the river at Delaware Canal State Park, Easton, Pennsylvania near the Forks of the Delaware Trailhead of the Delaware and Lehigh National Heritage Corridor (D&L Trail). The iconic Jimmy’s Doggie Stand can be seen to the right of the bridge and a portion of the Delaware River Toll Bridge at left.

The Free Bridge that spans the two states was completed in 1896 and survived massive flooding from Hurricane Diane in 1955. It underwent a thorough restoration in 1990 and is one of my very favorite places to photograph.

Phillipsburg and Easton are both historic Delaware River Towns. Phillipsburg was established March 8, 1861 and was named for William Phillips, an early settler of the area. Easton was founded in 1752.

  

The Forks of the Delaware is the confluence of the Delaware and Lehigh Rivers where Phillipsburg and Easton meet; it is where the Lehigh River merges into the Delaware River.

The trail is positioned between the Delaware River and Delaware Canal, which was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1978. The site possesses national significance in commemorating the history of the United States of America.

Running from Wilkes-Barre to Bristol, the D&L Trail passes through the Lehigh and Delaware rivers and their canals in Pennsylvania.

 

Color In The Grey Of Winter ...

“The beauty of things must be that they end.”

   ~ Jack Kerouac

      ~ 1922-1969

It’s a moment frozen in time in the soft stillness in the grey of winter, as three orange balls on the water briefly deliver a pop of color in this abstract image I captured in early March along the Ironton Rail Trail, which loops more than nine miles through Whitehall Township, the Borough of Coplay and North Whitehall Township, Pennsylvania.

The Ironton Railroad was a shortline railroad in Lehigh County. Originally built in 1861 to haul iron ore and limestone to blast furnaces along the Lehigh River, traffic later shifted to carrying Portland Cement when local iron mining declined in the early 20^th century. Much of the railroad had already been abandoned when it became part of Conrail in 1976, and the last of its trackage was removed in 1984.

 

In 1996, Whitehall Township purchased 9.2 miles of the right-of-way from Conrail, transforming it into the Ironton Rail Trail.