Cherry Springs
Another month, another visit to Cherry Springs State Park to observe the night skies. As you may recall from my post from June 2nd, the state park is an ideal location for night sky observing, due to the lack of light pollution. The suburban settings outside of Philadelphia, though acceptable for observing the planets and the brightest of stars, is never the correct environment to point a telescope at distant objects -- nebulas, galaxies, globular clusters, etc. To fully appreciate the hobby, one must travel beyond the reaches of all sources of light pollution. And to those living in or around Pennsylvania, Cherry Springs is a great option.
On July 8th, my dad and I traveled to Cherry Springs to get another chance to observe the best starry skies of Pennsylvania. Though normally we bring along our 4-inch TeleVue refractor or our 10-inch Meade Schmidt-Cassegrain, we decided to borrow an 8-inch Orion go-to Dobsonian. We wanted to visit the park earlier, although weather conditions were unfavorable on weekends prior to July 8th. And yes, the work week also gets in the way of such trips....
One important tip for new astronomers everywhere: pay close attention to the details of the weather forecasts! Why you ask? Although the meteorologists were right in forecasting clear skies, we did have some minor degree of cloud cover and, of all things, a boatload of dew. While dew becomes an issue during the night, our scope was covered in dew before sunset, much to our surprise. Our tent, our eyepieces bag, even our chairs were covered in dew. The moisture made aligning the scope a problem. Though we've used the red dot finder while aligning the Dobsonian, we soon realized the moisture had made our red dot finder a red blob projector.
Though we had some cloud cover initially, this was before and slightly after sunset -- no problem there. Around midnight, however, clouds began filling up the skies to the southeast. Did I forget to mention we had the Earth's moon to worry about as well? When adding the moon into this equation, we were observing through milky skies.
Log Cabin Inn
The astronomer cannot live on the dark skies alone; an astronomer has got to eat, right? Personally, I recommend the Log Cabin Inn, located on US Route 6 about thirty minutes east from Cherry Springs State Park.
The menu had an astonishing selection of dishes listed -- all in four pages. The second page (I'm skipping the first page, which covered appetizers) lists various steaks and related meats. Page three covers various freshwater fish and seafood dishes. And the final page covers numerous pasta dishes.
The salad bar -- everything so fresh and nutritious; I helped myself to some homemade macaroni salad and coleslaw, both having such a delightful taste. I swear, I could have gone up for more had I decided to skip the deserts after the main course. Yet, perhaps the best part of the salad bar was the homemade clam chowder. Unlike most eateries in Pennsylvania, this restaurant made their chowder with fresh, tender clams.
Of the items on the menu, I went with their broiled trout, with cheesy mashed potatoes as my side dish. And this wasn't just your average trout purchased at the grocery store; this was freshly caught trout from the local streams.
As for deserts, there were twelve different deserts to chose from: carrot cake, cheese cake, cheese cake with a carrot cake inside of it, pie, etc. I had settled for a cheese cake that had a carrot cake inside of it; a unique combination, I thought. Already I knew I enjoyed cheese cakes and carrot cakes separately, but together as one desert, that was something worth trying. Mmm ... a lovely cheese cake, carrot cake mixture it was! I could have it again and again.
How would I rate this restaurant in comparison to others? Personally, I hate to rate everyone; it's too much pressure on my part. Still, it beats eating at a pizza joint. So, fellow astronomers, if you're planning to go to Cherry Springs State Park anytime soon, please take my advise: go to the Log Cabin Inn! I'm sure you'll be satisfied!
