In checking my Flickr email this morning, I was surprised to see the following:
Photo and Photostream for the month of November.
Andrew, I am happy to inform you that your Photostream and photo of Glen Hope Covered Bridge will be featured in our Group for the month of November. The photo is really beautiful and we do appreciate you posting it with us.
Today was the Brownie Hay Ride at Yeager’s Farm Market on Route 113 North, just south of Phoenixville.
As soon as Madison got off the bus at 3:30pm, she was asking if it was time to go yet.
I tried my best to make her understand, that she still needed to wait for another two hours!
Yeager's Farm Market 069
She wasn’t buying it.
We did leave a little early, and were one of the first to arrive.
By 6pm, it seemed that everyone had arrived.
About 45 five to seven year old girls, 20 women parents, and myself. Talk about feeling like the odd “man” out…
Eventually, the group was herded on to a large Hay carrier, and toured the farm in country luxury.
All the girls were having a blast, which was easy enough to tell with all the screaming! (At one point, I did hear one of the mother’s say she wished she had brought aspirin because of the noise level!)
During the tour, I did manage to take a bunch of pictures, and those images will be posted on another site for all the Brownies and Parents to see.
Included here, are a few of the other images that I captured…
I was very lucky to get this capture. It was taken while standing up, as the tractor pulled the trailer over the dirt roads, as the sun faded.
Thankfully, I did capture it in raw/cr2, and was able to use Photoshop to bring out some of the lost details.
I had a very pleasant drive back to Downingtown via some very beautiful back roads. (Note to Self – Need to re-drive Route 163 South of Downingtown)
When I finally got to the intersection of Sugar Bridge Road and Rt. 322, where normally, I would have taken a Left on to Rt. 322, I could not.
Just in front of me, was the burned out shell of a SUV, that still was smoking and water was still being used to control the situation.
I made the required Right on Rt. 322, cut up Valley Creek Road, and on to Harmony Hill, down across Gibson, and finally a Right on to Rt. 322 toward downtown.
As the bridge came into view, I looked at the clock, and saw that I had about 30 mins till Madison got off the bus, so I made the Left on to Bradford Ave. and managed to find a small spot park just under some of the support legs.
I pulled out my gear, check the traffic, and crossed the road to the base of the extremely tall supports.
The leaves on the trees were still on the greenish side, but there where some yellows, and the wind was blowing white clouds quickly in and out of shoots.
I captured several HDR series of my location, including this one.
Another reason that I started down Bradford Ave., was to hopefully find and easy access point up to the bridge, but today was not going to be the day.
By the time I finished my captures, and packed up my gear, I had less than 15 mins to get home!
“I would be scared to death to go up there and take pics. I have been on the tracks near Commerce drive in Exton though. Good article.” – Lisa (2/29/2012)
“I live right by the bridge and trust me you do not want to go up there. Not too many years ago someone fell off of it onto 322. It is rusted in many spots.” – Elaine (2/29/2012)
Update(s)-
June 7, 2015 – I have been getting a number of hits on this page lately, so I decided to take a look and update things…
– The Link below is not longer active on downingtown.does.co
– I found this Request 1 and Request 2 request on Facebook to “The Daily Local News”
– I have tried to find more details, even doing a general search on the PA State Police site, but found nothing…
– I have found records using a different search criteria, that do suggest a person, but I’m not going to publish that…
– I have also found videos on YouTube of folks walking around the bridge train tracks >> it is illegal to do!
I missed this bridge the last time I was down here in September by ‘fat fingering’ the GPS coordinates and driving into a townhouse area without any creeks, streams or rivers!
Waking into the bridge, I looked for the plaque, which is located on the Northern side of the bridge.
Glen Hope Covered Bridge (1889) – Sign
While taking my images of the plaque, a truck pulled up to the Southern entrance, and I signaled it go continue.
As the man passed me, he stopped, and we began to talk, and after a minute or two, he pulled over, and we began to talk more.
He introduced himself as Jamie Crouse of Crouse Auto Body in Elkton MD, and had lived in the area all his life.
Jamie also pointed out the char marks from the arson fire that destroyed the bridge in 1987.
Burn marks on floor – Glen Hope Covered Bridge (1889)
Jamie continued to explain that a great of effort was made to recover as much of the original wood as possible for the rebuilding, which included Bongossi wood from Africa.
If you look closely at the floor in this picture, you will see large indentations, which were caused by the burning bails of hay and gasoline used to start the fire.
Some of the vertical posts still show charring from the fire.
He continued to say, that the two men responsible for the bridge fire are still in jail, and had also been linked to other arson attacks in the area.
On a more humorous side, he recalled that during his teenage years, two local girls visited Glenn Hope and other local covered bridges of the area, and carved “Boobless Wonder Strikes Again” on the down-creek side and “Woogie” on the up-creek side of the trusses.
We chatted a little more, and thanked him for the background info, and then he was off.
So now, where do I start my images?
The lighting was bouncing all over the place!
There was a stormy cold front passing over the area.
Short bursts of direct sun light, followed by various types of clouds, dark ones with rain and white fluffy ones.
Exposure nightmares!
But since I was doing HDR images any way, it really was not an issue.
Glen Hope Covered Bridge (1889) – Looking South
In this image, you can see the Sun light popping in some areas, but not others.
HDR and ‘Mother Nature’ work wonders some times!
Underneath Glen Hope Covered Bridge (1889) – Looking South
What I find most striking in this image, this the different layout of the support beams.
This was the first time that I saw the short ‘horizontal’ support beams instead of the long full-length ‘vertical’ beams of the other bridges, and certainly makes for a different visual capture!
I moved West up the Little Elk creek, and was able to capture this image looking East.
Looking East (Down Creek) – Glen Hope Covered Bridge (1889)
After my presentation, I got to chat with several folks about the bridges, and during one conversation, I was introduced to Joe Chamberlain, who was tasked with removing and repairing the bridge after the cement truck damaged the bridge in 1968.
He not only confirmed the story, but went on to tell me, that the truck had started over the bridge, got about halfway, when the rear of the truck fell through the decking. He also questimated that there were about 8 yards of cement in the truck, at +/- 4400 pounds/yard, or 17.6 tons on a maybe 10 ton limit bridge!
Mr. Chamberlain went on to tell me, that the top of the cement truck was still above the deck level, and that he and his crew had to dig into the creek bed to lower the truck enough for them to get it out.
