a meeting and a walk

Today I had a meeting for a "service learning" project for my students. Basically a non-profit get free design work.

Today's meeting was with the people from the Johnson estate. Archibald Johnson was the first mayor of Bethlehem.  The estate is hidden, or so I thought until today. Lydia and I found the park in May of 2014, after much searching. Today was quite a different story. There was a sign at the turn, a new parking lot and even a trail sign.

The meeting was at the Archibald Johnson house. I thought there was only one. The mansion that Lydia and I found at Housenick Park. I went there and arrived with 5 minutes to spare. Nobody else was there. I called my co-teacher and left a message. Then I emailed her from my phone. Nothing. 10 minutes later some birders came.  I decided to take my cue from them and go hiking.

Sadly, the rest of the estate has fallen further into disrepair. The house is now boarded up and the shutters closed.

The stairs are closed off and crumbling. The tennis court is overgrown.

I wandered around for an hour. I was about to hit the port-o-potty when my phone rang. It was the co-teacher. "Where are you?" I'm at the estate waiting for you. "No you're not." WTF? There was another property? So I leave the park, return to Linden Street and go up Santee Mill Road to Camel's Hump and the right house. Basically, Mr Johnson owned all the property from Camels Hump (he named it) all the way to the old K-Mart.

All's well that ends well. And every meeting is better with a hike!

Miles/Steps: 4.5-5 with the dog walk
Bathrooms:  Never made it inside 
Wildlife:       I heard a lot of birds. There were a lot of birders with big scopes and SLR cameras with huge lenses. Sadly, I don't know bird calls 
Weather:     60 or so. Yeah, tomorrow we are supposed to get a foot of snow. Or none.

Extras:        The estate has their own limestone kilns. The question is why?