Railroads, and airplanes, and backpacks…

Long ago, my family and I travelled with a tent, and later on we carried the tent on our backs. I even got involved with a 4-H group and led some hikes. The Allegheny Plateau was one of my favorite destinations.

A railroad once built a viaduct over a deep valley there… a marvel of engineering at the time.

On one camping trip we visited the Kinzua Viaduct, and walked across it. Carol was terrified, both boys got a kick out of it. We even clambered down the steep hill to look at a couple of the foundation structures.

You could ride excursion trains across it.

When I was a student pilot, on one of the mandatory solo cross country flights I went to the airport near there. I asked the guy in the tower where it was. He told me it was near the outer marker. That would be right under me ;-(

It was impressive how it looked like a tinkertoy from a few thousand feet.

Years later a tornado knocked half of it down.

I will forever regret not taking one of those excursions.

Now it is just a fantastic lookout site. Allegheny-National-Forest-Visitors-Bureau

The inside info: at the turn of the (twentieth) century, they ran excursions over it too. They gave away salted peanuts for free. They sold lemonade for a price.

American ingenuity!

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