Here’s a random one for ya: State College, PA.
This is a town that had never even crossed my mind until I was putting this trip on my calendar and looking for plane tickets. I didn’t know it then, but by the time I was getting on this plane… I f*cking needed a break. I might not always seem like the most festive person, but I really do love the fall. It’s my favorite season, and the rituals that accompany it, however small they may seem to others, really mean something to me. Even my annual PSL (Pumpkin Spice Latte) indulgence is more meaningful to me than it probably should be. The fall colors were shaping up to be extra spectacular this year but then…
Ya know what, I’ll spare you the details, but most of this month was spent between a hospital, airports, road trips, and eventually a funeral. When it came time for this trip, I was weary. I just wanted to rest and let fall 2022 fade away as soon as possible. But this trip was already booked.
Here’s the thing about State College: it’s in the middle of goddamn nowhere. It’s notable because it’s the college town corresponding Penn State, which is one of the biggest universities in the country. And what is Penn State close to? Nothing. It’s the place that other things are close to. So we had to fly to Pittsburgh and then drive 3 hours in a rental car to get here. All that sounded like a huge hassle to me, until we got off the plane and promptly entered fall paradise. The trip turned out to be the biggest and best dose of autumn that I have gotten in a LONG time. Here are a few snapshots of the nice fall weekend that was to come.
I think the most appropriate place to start this article is with a walk around the Penn State campus. It feels like the classic American college campus, which is somewhat foreign to me because I went to college in urban Boston. Instead of walking across the quad, I took the subway/trolley to class. Nevertheless, with the autumn colors in full bloom, I think any red-blooded American adult—regardless of their own experience, or lack thereof, with college—would be hard-pressed not to feel some sort of academic nostalgia.
On top of that, my Midwest autumn college football nostalgia was having a rare awakening from dormancy. This happened to be a big weekend for Big 10 football. Penn State was playing Ohio State just a hop, skip, and a jump away, in Beaver Stadium. We drove by the stadium the day before to see tents pitched on the cold, hard sidewalk in front of the gates. (If you’re wondering, my Buckeyes won.)
Here’s a fun fact for you: with a seating capacity of 106,572, Penn State’s Beaver Stadium is currently the 2nd largest stadium in the Western Hemisphere and 4th largest in the world. For some reason that really blew my mind. 🤯
Anyway, back to talking about autumn. Tom Hanks has a line in the 1990s rom-com You’ve Got Mail, “Don’t you love New York in the fall? It makes me want to buy school supplies. I would send you a bouquet of newly-sharpened pencils if I knew your name and address.” I was thinking about that line as I put these galleries together. Fall will forever be associated with the start of school to me. Check out these pictures.
We also took a pit stop at The Arboretum at Penn State, which is BRAND new. In total, this area spans 370 acres, but we spent the majority of our time just strolling around the H.O. Smith Botanic Gardens. The air was crisp and cool and each section of the gardens here had embraced the fall vibes wholeheartedly. It made for a great place for a PSL stroll.
Anyway, remember how I said that Penn State is in the middle of nowhere?
Well, when the fall colors are in full bloom, “nowhere” is pretty much exactly where you want to be. So we made a point to get out of State College—as pretty as it was—and get into the never-ending rural fall paradise that surrounded us.
We started with a place called Way Fruit Farm, which is just a little way outside of State College. Although this isn’t exactly “Amish Country,” there’s definitely a noticeable Amish presence in this area. Despite my usual inclination toward anthropological photography, I have no pictures of Amish people to offer you today. But if you want to see them for yourself, rural Pennsylvania is the place to be. I hope this doesn’t sound bad, but I sort of forget that Amish people exist. How weird.
Anywho, Way Fruit Farm is a great fall-themed destination because it has both a pumpkin patch and an apple orchard. It occurs to me that I should count myself lucky for having parents who brought me out to pumpkin patches and apple orchards in the fall often enough that this is now part of my core childhood memories. Clearly, it’s been many years since I visited either because this experience felt very out-of-the-ordinary for me. However, Way Fruit Farm has more to offer than just apples and pumpkins. They sell all kinds of fruit-based goodies from local farmers (some of whom are Amish), from jams to pickles. I would have been tempted to buy a whole bunch of produce here if I wasn’t going to have to bring it on a plane with me. This has to be some organic, high-quality shit.
From there, we headed to Black Moshannon State Park. This is a 3,480-acre woodland area that includes huge forested areas, as well as a large bog, which makes it home to a much more diverse spectrum of wildlife than is normally found in this region. Indeed, many of the species of vegetation and animal life here are normally only found much farther north, which is interesting. Walking on the boardwalk that runs alongside the bog, there were signs for all the different kinds of fish living in this water. I chuckled as I walked by a description of a fish called the “Chubsucker.”
Hilarious fish aside, I think the real draw of this place is just beautiful hikes through the woods. Near the peak of autumn colors, we were expecting this to be really gorgeous. Apparently, the actual peak of the colors here in Central PA was the week before our arrival, but it was still a pretty idyllic drive out here through the rolling Appalachian hills. As we approached Black Moshannon, we found ourselves driving uphill. As our elevation climbed, the leaves on the trees grew more and more sparse. It turns out that the leaves turn color and fall sooner at higher altitudes, so by the time we reached our Black Moshannon trailhead, we were a bit further away from “peak fall vibes” than we were at the start of our drive. Still, our walk through the smoldering embers of what has to have been a gorgeous fire of colors did not disappoint. Here’s a map and some photographs from this excursion.
Turth be told, I didn’t even bring my camera with me on this trip. This was not supposed to be a ~*trave*l~ experience. This was a chance to visit some of our people. But then the fall colors were just so pretty that I took a million pictures on my fancy new iPhone, and then later decided they were “blog-worthy.” iPhone cameras have come a LONG way.
Anyway, I owe a thank you to Laura, Jeremy, and Lizzie for welcoming me into their world for a weekend. Here are a few pictures of our early morning drive back to Pittsburgh to catch our flight out. With the fall colors in full bloom, this drive does not suck.
For today’s musical bookend, I’ll go with something that captures a nice cross-section of acoustic fall vibes, undergraduate angst, and general nostalgia. I’m publishing this article off-season, but feel free to keep this in your back pocket until your next fall road trip. This could be a fitting addition to your playlist.
