The C&O Canal Towpath

By Eilene Lyon Many Cumberland restaurants are closed on Sundays, but we found a place to get a burger that even had some live music out on the sidewalk. I took a stroll along the Potomac River later in the evening. A gaggle of Canada geese grazed on the grass near the towpath. Across the... Continue Reading →

The Great Allegheny Passage

By Eilene Lyon What eventually became the Great Allegheny Passage (GAP) rail trail was conceived in the 1970s. The trail partly replaces the route of the Western Maryland Railroad. The entire 149-mile distance between Pittsburg, Penn. and Cumberland, Md. was not completed until 2013. In conjunction with the C & O Canal towpath (a National... Continue Reading →

Starting Point: Pittsburgh

By Eilene Lyon This is the first in a series of posts about a long-awaited trip to ride bikes from Pittsburgh to Washington, D.C. along the Great Allegheny Passage (GAP) rail trail, and the Cumberland & Ohio Canal (C&O) towpath trail. We spent the first full day of our trip in Pittsburgh, a city I... Continue Reading →

The Big Man of Salisbury

By Eilene Lyon My North Carolina German family lines did not make that colony/state their first stop on this continent. For the most part, they arrived in Philadelphia and settled in established German communities in Pennsylvania. They, or their descendants, later moved to North Carolina where good land could be had for less money. There... Continue Reading →

Jerking Lightning

Originally published July 15, 2018 By Eilene Lyon Since I seem to be on a roll with the Ransom family, I thought I’d follow up with a bit about one of Robert Ransom’s sons. He and Emma had four surviving sons: James Henry, William Randolph, Arthur Lemmon, and Albert Frederick (“Fred”). The first two were... Continue Reading →

Milling Water to the Sea

Originally published May 14, 2018 By Eilene Lyon We recently took a trip to the Netherlands and Norway, so expect a few posts on sights, scenes, and travel. But first, I want to share a bit about the Dutch genius for engineering water. It’s no secret that much of the Netherlands is below sea level.... Continue Reading →

The Bishop and the Cathedral

By Eilene Lyon Several years ago, my local book club read Death Comes for the Archbishop by one of my favorite authors, Willa Cather. It’s a fictional story of two real men, missionaries from France, who arrived in Santa Fe in 1851, not long after New Mexico became part of the United States. Cather calls... Continue Reading →

The Land of Enchantment

By Eilene Lyon My niece came for a visit in late February. I suggested a possible trip to Santa Fe. She countered with a visit to the Meow Wolf art installation there. I booked us into a Fort Marcy Compound condo for two nights. On our first afternoon, after getting settled into our rooms, we... Continue Reading →

Sauerkraut

By Eilene Lyon In America we tend to think of sauerkraut as a traditional German dish. It was also an important food to my 3rd great-grandparents in the Jenkins-Bedford line. Their heritage was Welsh-English, not German. Abigail (Bedford) Jenkins mentions it twice in her gold-rush letters to her husband, Henry Z. Jenkins. From August 1851:... Continue Reading →

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