PA Lancaster Junction Rail Trail

You know the old saying that the place we know the least about is our own backyard? Welp. I decided to finally walk this little local gem of a rail trail following a long meeting at work. The Lancaster Junction Rail Trail gets a nice mention in the guide book Rail-Trails Pennsylvania (see Notes) and I am trying to complete all the trails mentioned there, so this is an easy one to check off. Why wait? I needed a good leg-stretch after a few hours sitting and what the heck, it's on the way home (sort of), so why not? 

Drink stand and honor box

The original Reading & Columbia Railroad line was begun in 1861 to link Reading to the transportation hub at Columbia then on to the Susquehanna River where goods and resources were transferred to the Tidewater Canal that delivered produce, lumber, and especially coal to Chesapeake Bay markets. Later the line ran directly along the eastern shore of the Susquehanna all the way to Perryville, Maryland.

This line was active until the 1970s with a busy freight and passenger service between Lancaster and Reading.  I walked from the trailhead at the Emergency Services Training Center out to Lancaster Junction where the rail trail ends and turned back. At Lancaster Junction, once a busy freight center and RR community, the rail trail meets with an active freight where a passing train sounded its horn at all the road crossings as I walked back. 

Chiques Creek

Chiques (Chick-eez) Creek sidles up against the old rail bed for a mile or so before it veers away to the west to makes its zig-zaggy way to the Susquehanna River and the Chiques Rock cliffs. This little creek is prone to flash flooding and with recent torrential downpours, the woods on either side of the trail were stacked with muddy, woody debris, scrubbed clean of living vegetation. 

American Toad, 

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail on New York Ironweed

Orange Coneflower, Rudbeckia fulgida

Early Goldenrod, Solidago juncea

So about that little drink stand and honor box (pictured at the top) that I came across about halfway to Lancaster Junction... seeing as it's summer in Pennsylvania, it is almost sacrilegious not to have an ice cold root beer and, being a devoted fan of homemade root beer, I could not pass up the opportunity to drop $2 into the honor box and grab a bottle from the cooler. Would it be the real thing I wondered as I unscrewed the cap.

Lancaster Junction

Historic freight warehouse

Why this devotion to homemade root beer? Let's go back in time to when I was ten and on my annual summer visit to stay with my Great Uncle Russ and Great Aunt "Ginn" Virginia who lived in the Appalachian/Blue Ridge Mountains. They lived in a cabin just up the hill from the Shenandoah River and tended their own orchards, hunted and fished, raised bees, foraged the woods, farmed a little, and generally lived off the land. Every summer Uncle Russ, a proud Welshman, produced a heavy wooden flat filled with tall, glass, recapped Coke bottles filled with dark homemade root beer - the fizzy kind with a kick. My Aunt Ginn, who spoke German when she was especially proud to serve us her tinctures and home cooking knew that I lived for her root beer. I dreamt about it all winter. I begged for it when I got there. And when I turned ten and was allowed to drink a whole icy bottle by myself (no more little jelly jars portions!) I cried. It was that good. "Der Sommer ist da!" Aunt Ginn declared. Summer is here!  

Beer and the lemonade chaser 

Well, I cried again on the Lancaster Junction trail today as I gulped that nice fizzy cold root beer. Just like I remembered, it zinged of sassafras and birch root. It sang of sarsaparilla and ginger. And just like that old family recipe (still in the family but made with "Big H" Hires Root Beer or Lancaster's own Stolzfus extract today) it faded away with hints of cinnamon and clove and a touch of honey. Holy moly.  It was good German stuff that would have made my Uncle and Aunt applaud. And, just like the summer tradition of offering a chaser of ice cold lemonade to follow the root beer, just in case "the fizzy makes one dizzy" as Aunt Ginn would say, I returned the empty bottle and then bought a homemade lemonade for the walk back. 

The real deal. 

Notes:

My favorite rail trail guide, Rail-Trails Pennsylvania, is available through the Rails to Trails Conservancy  which serves as an organization dedicated to the national rail trail movement to promote community accessibility, connectivity, public spaces, and local recreational economies. Note that federal rail trail funding has been hit very hard with the passage of recent legislation that claws back hundreds of millions of dollars dedicated to helping communities develop their rail trail infrastructure. Please consider supporting RTC as they fight to restore funding, restart grant programs, and stabilize community rail trail transportation and recreation projects. I do!  

About that root beer recipe - here's what almost every Amish root beer brewer in Lancaster County uses today and I'm telling you, it's that good. https://lancasteronline.com/news/homemade-root-beer-appears-at-scores-of-roadside-stands/article_be7b5324-3011-5113-b97a-c705661fbd5e.html While local homemade root beer does contain a tiny bit of alcohol as a result of fermentation (the "kick") it really depends on the amount of sugar put into the brewing to feed the yeast that allows the taste of real birch, sassafras, and sarsaparilla to come through. Our family recipe also calls for a little cinnamon and ginger. Too much sugar and the root tastes are overpowered by the sweetness. It's still sweet but a little beer-bitter too. Mmmmmm!