Delaware Water Gap (10/8/2021)

Friday, October 8, 2021

Shuffling off to Buffalo, the long way. We followed PA-611 N along the west side of the Delaware River through part of the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area.

View from Arrow Island Overlook, with the Delaware River
hidden below and the eastern bluff of the gap rising above

Point of Gap Overlook had an official (and spiralling)
viewpoint, here with Kent taking a photo

We stand beneath the western bluff with a view across
the river to the eastern bluff of the Delware Water Gap (KSS)

The eastern bluff is full of rocks and boulders

View from Resort Point Overlook back towards the gap;
Interstate-80 passes through the gap on the New Jersey side

In the town of Delaware Water Gap, PA: the Antoine Dutot
Museum & Gallery in a circa 1850 brick schoolhouse;
named for the founder of the town (1793) who was a French
plantation owner in Santa Domingo fleeing a slavery uprising

In the 1800s, Delaware Water Gap became a resort destination for those who wanted fresh mountain air and beautiful scenery. It was the second largest inland resort town (after Saratoga Springs, NY) in the United States following the Civil War, benefitting from access to the railroads. The advent of the automobile and the tough economic times of the 1930s led to a decline of Delaware Water Gap as a resort.

Kent took me to Minisink Hotel, a "full-service tavern;"
where an old man (driving a new Lincoln) wore a MAGA hat
and a couple middle-aged fellows proclaimed themselves
to be "cunnermen" (the local rednecks)

Next: Stroudsburg, PA.