Pittsburgh to Lancaster

This morning I departed Pittsburgh for Lancaster. However, I stopped on the way to meet my friend T. in Hummelstown to visit Echo Dell Indian Echo Caverns . T and I first met a couple of years ago up in Alaska when she was on staff at the Bristol Bay Sport Fishing lodge , where I had gone to photograph brown bears. She is currently living in PA and was kind enough to make time to meet me for the afternoon.

IEC requires you to take a guided tour. I was concerned that would limit my photo opportunities, but we got very lucky. T and I were the only participants on our 1:30 tour. And our guide was Andy, who was amazing. She was a great story teller and very knowledgeable about the history and science of the caverns. We spent a fun and productive hour with Annie touring the caverns. This is my third cavern visit this trip and I have yet to tire of the experience.

I had been told that I would be allowed to take a tripod in to the caverns if I wished, but that it might not be practical for a variety of reasons. So I decided to just crank up my ISO and put the new AI denoise function in Lightroom to the test. You will have to be the judge as to how that worked out.

We then stopped at the Cocoa Beanery Hershey lodge in Hershey, yes that Hershey, for a drink and a snack before parting ways. I drove the short distance to Lancaster where I am staying for a couple of nights.

Tomorrow I am supposed to meet two new friends that I met a few weeks ago in Maryland at the Blackwater NWR. One of them lives in this area and the other is planning to drive in from Maryland. However, rain is predicted tomorrow. How that impacts our plans is yet to be determined. Stay tuned.