Monday, June 29, 2009

Polish Rainbows in Newtown?

So while I was walking one evening last week I saw a rainbow over a house upon further inspection I saw a very puzzling sign and flag. Is there really a Polish embassy in little Newtown? Either way it's a nice rainbow and a very interesting house. Also a mystery to be solved.
To see other My World Tuesday posts please click here.

Sunday, June 28, 2009

Beauty vs Decay

The interesting color of the trim and the red bricks got my attention first then the beautiful wild daisies took over. This is an early 1950's era school that has been closed. It's right behind my house and is in the process of being reclaimed by nature.

To see other Mellow Yellow Monday posts please click here.

Friday, June 26, 2009

The Back of State Street.

This is the back of some Newtown buildings that are on State street. The brick building is the hardware store.
Have a great weekend!

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Close Encounters of the Skywatch Kind


Click the pictures for a better view
Last evening I went for a walk around Newtown and after a while I noticed some amazing, beautiful orange clouds.
I could barely see the setting sun due to obstructions like power lines, trees, houses and other buildings, but the aura from the sunset was so fantastic that people were coming out of their homes and watching.
Thankfully I had my camera and took lots of pictures, but they really don't do justice to the incredible site.
Today I'm posting the strangest looking cloud formation that I can remember seeing.
I saw this just when it looked like the show was about over.
You may disagree, but to me it looks just like an orange alien-type head that's looking to the right. It has large eyes and a very pronounced chin , even a nose and lips.

To join in or see other Skywatch Friday posts, please click here.

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

St. Mary's Episcopal Church and Graveyard

Enlarge picture for a better view

I took this picture from the graveyard at St. Mary's Episcopal Church in Burlington, New Jersey, about a half hour drive from Newtown. The church in the picture is actually the "new" church that was built in 1854, the old church is looks a lot less impressive but was built in 1703 and is the oldest Episcopal church in New Jersey. The graveyard that sits between the two churches dates back to 1695. I look forward to returning and exploring the inside of the churches. I read that the old church's silver communion service was a gift from England's Queen Anne before her death in 1713.
To see the other sepia scenes posts please click here.

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Swan Songs at the Bucks County Playhouse

I wonder how many swan songs took place here both inside and out over the past seventy years?
While on a little bridge taking pictures of the playhouse I saw three swans or white geese pretending to be swans swimming, then suddenly they turned and like magic there were four.
If you look really closely at the second picture you can see the baby's tail and little yellow foot.
"The Bucks County Playhouse, The State Theater of Pennsylvania, located in New Hope, Bucks County, Pennsylvania is a national landmark for Broadway Plays and is rich in theatrical history. “Springtime for Henry” with Edward Everett Horton opened the Playhouse season in 1939 and the celebrities that followed are a who's who of the theater. Princess Grace Kelly, Bea Arthur, Jack Cassidy, Colleen Dewhurst, Bob Fosse, Merv Griffin, Gene Rayburn, William Shatner, Paul Lynde, George C. Scott, Liza Minnelli, Audra McDonald, Loretta Swit, Don Knotts, Andrea McArdle and John Travolta are just a few of the luminaries that have graced the Playhouse stage in our incredible list of Broadway productions."
The Delaware river and the Pennsylvania, New Jersey border is on the other side of the playhouse.
To see other Watery Wednesday posts please click here.

Monday, June 22, 2009

Newtown Historic Houses Walking Tour

At 6:30pm on Friday I with camera in tote walked over to the historic Half -Moon Inn also known as the Court Inn (built in 1733) and gathered together with about thirty other people for a historic homes walking tour. The tour was led by members of the Newtown Historic Association. We walked around for about an hour as the guide gave a little history about Newtown and described the different styles of houses along the tour. The tour mainly focused on homes built in the 19th century. I didn't catch most of what he was saying because I was straying away and taking pictures but from what I heard there are lots of Victorian era and queen Anne styled homes also some of the homes have whats called French roofs. What I found interesting is the contrast of styles from pre and post railroad era. Pre-railroad the houses were built with a limited amount of mostly local material and post railroad opened things up as they could easily import material from far away. It makes sense but I'd never really thought about that before.

Anyway here are some of the homes that I saw on the walking tour.

This is My World. I you would like to see other My World Tuesday posts please click here.

Sunday, June 21, 2009

A Coke and a Smile


I've decided to stay in the town of Bristol and post a few different pictures of the same mural. One for the Monochrome Weekly Theme and the other for Mellow Yellow Monday. I guess I could get greedy and add Ruby Tuesday. This mural is just around the corner from our sleeping barber friend that I posted the other day. To me this mural just adds to the old fashioned feel of this historic part of town.

Saturday, June 20, 2009

Bristol Goose Invasion


There is an old industrial area in Bristol with a pond and a grassy area between an old building and the rail station. The pond and grassy area is home to an army of geese and some turtles. There were also some furry little critters that swam around and seemed to be building burrows. What surprised me was the loud hiss the goose made when the furry creature(anyone know what they are?) got close.
The goose sounded just like a cat and the bottom picture is the actual moment that it happened. Enlarge the photos to see if you can tell what the furry critters are.
Click Camera Critters if you want to see other critters from other blogs. I know I do!

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Stormy skies over Philadelphia

I took these just after a big thunderstorm passed over the Philadelphia art museum(where I'm standing). I think the odd angles of the building in the distance look pretty cool.
Click here to see all of the Skywatch Friday posts from around the globe.

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Historic Fallingston

This is some of the 300 year old Quaker community called Fallsington. It's about five miles from Newtown. I've been wondering what style of architecture the houses are. Early American? American colonial? They're all over this area but I'd never seen houses like that in person until I moved here. Maybe after 300 years the graveyard's residents got bored and tried to escape. What do you think? :-)

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

A church on Green street


I saw more than one church on my walk after the penitentiary trip. This one is on Green street about two blocks from the brownstones that I posted the other day.
If you enlarge the bottom one you can see the dove flying right above the center cross.

Monday, June 15, 2009

Eastern State Penitentiary

Looking along the wall toward a guard post on the right

The central guardhouse with clock Medieval looking turret on the corner seen from outside
The remains of a cell Looking down a row of stacked cells in black and white As I mentioned the other day, I went to see the old Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia. It was used from 1829 to 1971. This place is pretty amazing. It was closed and left to the elements for decades and has the water damage to prove it. A few interesting tidbits that I gathered are that it was the world's first penitentiary, it was very innovative in its time with a wheel spoke type design and over the years modern conveniences were added here before most people got them on the outside. The walls are really high. It reminds me of an old fortress.

I hope to go back and take one of the tours so I can find out more about this interesting place.
I'll post more pictures over time.
This my "My World Tuesday" post. If you would like to see My World posts from other blogs, please click here.

Sunday, June 14, 2009

Philadelphia Brown

Enlarge to see the faces above the 2nd floor windows also the other details
When I was walking between Eastern State Pen. and the Art Museum in Philadelphia the other day I was amazed by all the wonderful old row houses and brownstones. Here are a couple of them. The bottom one is the Bergdoll mansion it's at the corner of Green and 22nd streets and the other is also on Green street. The Bergdoll was built in 1890 by a wealthy brewery owner. It has since been turned into apartments, but from the pictures i've seen the inside has been restored beautifully.


I would also like to mention that I just returned from an evening walk. There is a trail that winds around my neighborhood half way into the trail I started see flicks of light then more and more at that moment I realized I was seeing lightning bugs for the first time. When I turned a corner there was a grassy field several acres around, and as I walked I watched an amazing light show. It wasn't completely dark, so I was also able to see bats flying around and eating insects right out of the air. I talked to a guy who said this is just the beginning and in a few weeks the field will be so lit up with lightening bugs that I could read a book out there.

On top of all that the sunset and sky at dusk was beautiful too.(I didn't have my camera with me and if I did I doubt it could have captured the beauty of the scene)

Pennsylvania is a really wonderful place. I am so glad that we moved here.


Finally I would like to thank Martha from PA for recomending this blog to her friends on her blog The Daily Grind.

Award Alert

Today I got a great surprize when I returned from church, My blogger friend Bharat Khatri from the amazing blog Unseen Rajasthan gave me this really nice award. For this I am truely humbled and very thankful.

Uber (synonym to Super) Amazing Blog Award is a blog award given to sites who:

*Inspire you

*Make you smile and laugh, or maybe give amazing information

* A great read

*Has an amazing design

*Any other reasons you can think of that makes them uber amazing!

The rules of this award are:

* Put the logo on your blog or post.

* Nominate at least 5 blogs

* Let them know that they have received this Uber Amazing award by commenting on their blog.

* Share the love and link to this post and to the person you received your award from.

I am passing this award to the following 5 bloggers for their amazing blogs!
1)Bogey -View from the fairway
2)Luna the cat and of course Cezar and Léia-We love Luna
3)Owen, -Magic Lantern Show
4)Martha in PA, The Daily Grind
5)Peter Peter's Paris

Saturday, June 13, 2009

Philadelphia Museum of Art part 1


We made it to the museum just as a big thunder storm was leaving so the sky was beautiful.
This is where Sylvester Stallone made his triumphant run up the steps in Rocky.
We've been spoiled. We've been to the Louvre, Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Dallas Museum of Art, Kimbell in Fort Worth and Blanton Museum in Austin recently . The Philadelphia museum's exterior is awesome and it has incredible views. It's surrounded by grassy areas, trees, statues, fountains and even a river with old water works buildings that I plan to explore when I go back.
The museum has a wide range of collections including the usual European artists, Asian, American, modern art etc. We partiularly enjoyed an exhibit of photographs and drawings of buildings and cityscapes of New York and Philadelphia from the early 1900's to about the 1930's. Then we took a shuttle bus to the other building (the Perelman building) down the street. There we saw art from Picassos,Matisse,Degas and others, also a small exhibit of dresses from 1850 to 1925 and a photography exhibit that I didn't really care for.
It started raining again when we were almost home and it was still raining cats and dogs while we were eating pizza and watching the Maltise Falcon.
Today was a really great day!

Here are some pictures of the outside of the museum. To see part 2 please click here.

I plan on posting some of the prison pictures on monday.

Friday, June 12, 2009

A little slice of Philadelpia

Today my exploring led me to Eastern State Penitentiary. This prison was open from 1829 til 1971. Now they have tours and the public can explore it for a fee.
So I walked around the prison and took lots of pictures, some of which will be posted in the future. Then I walked around the general area on the outside and got more pictures of really neat old houses and churches. I also saw this section of the Philadelphia cityscape. Today was fun but hotter than I expected. It was 92F that's over 33C and very humid. Weather channel.com said it was only supposed to get to 82F, I'm glad it didn't rain though. Tomorrow Vicki and I may or may not go to the Philadelpia Museum of art.
So what are you doing this weekend?