My youngest son and I went on a hike today. It was a little longer than he was expecting (3.4 miles round trip) but he was a trooper through it all and finished it up in good form. I think it helped that I bribed him with a slushie from the convenience store afterward.
We went in search of the tri-state marker that marks the corners of Delaware, Pennsylvania, and Maryland. The original marker was set by the Mason-Dixon expedition in 1765. Recently the marker has been surrounded by private property, so difficult to get to, but the Pennsylvania White Clay Creek Preserve foundation was finally able to purchase enough land in the PA side of White Clay Creek to provide access to it with a 1.7 mile hike after parking.
Along the way we came across this really neat looking fallen log. I was more impressed with it than my son was. I got to thinking that I might be able to carve something like that from a fallen branch, because I really like the shape of it.
We also came across this fallen log that I thought looked like an alligator. Apparently I wasn't the only one who thought that, since when we got around front we noticed that someone else had previously scratched an eye into it.
We finally reached our destination: The Marker! We got there and my son, in all his 10 year old disbelief, proclaimed in exasperation, "We came all this way just to see a rock??" He wasn't as impressed as I was that we could literally stand in three different States at the same time.
He walked around and around it and saw the M for Maryland and P for Pennsylvania, and decided that we couldn't be in Delaware as well. Good observation on his part! But, at the time when Mason and Dixon were surveying and would have placed the marker, Delaware was still part of Pennsylvania and called "The Lower Counties." When Delaware proclaimed Independence on June 15, 1776, it proclaimed independence from both England and Pennsylvania. In fact Separation Day festivities are still held in New Castle, Delaware, the second weekend of every June.
Lucky for us a random jogger happened by and offered to take our picture.
(all images were created by me)
(with the exception of the last one, which was taken by some random jogger who was good enough not to run off with my phone)
