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ENCOUNTER 2005 Newsletter January Edition Valley Forge National Historic Park Page 2
There
are a number of walking, car (ten miles+) and bus tours of the encampments.
Audio tapes or CD’s can be purchased at the visitors’ center for
self-directed touring. Click on this link: www.nps.gov/vafo/pphtml/planyourvisit.html for information regarding the guided tours. Self-directed tour maps will be included in your Encounter ’05 registration pack. Over a dozen of the original farms remain throughout the park. Most driveways are open, providing many backgrounds for car photo ops. A 10-mile road course connects most of them. Several of the farms housed Washington’s officers and their staffs.
Inner Line Drive provides a challenging one-way serpentine hillclimb that finishes along Artillery Row.
The Valley Forge Railroad ran along the Schuylkill River which flows through the northern quadrant of VFNHP. Foot access for fishing passes through the (abandoned) railroad station. Troop starvation may have been avoided by a massive shad run in April 1778- thousands of them were pulled out of the river in this area.
A connector to the Schuylkill Trail is located above the railroad. It can be biked, rollerbladed, or walked all the way into Philadelphia (20 miles +/-). A popular midpoint stop is Manayunk, which hangs onto the side of a hill overlooking the Schuylkill River & Expressway - it is bedecked with boutiques, pubs, microbrewery, and gourmet restaurants. Many of the old manufacturing buildings have been converted to trendy loft apartments.
VFNHP will provide lots of family recreation between AHSTC events…or come a couple of days early to take advantage of:
Try to schedule an early evening private off-road picnic capped by a lover’s Caribbean sunset, right here in VFNHP…
Back to the Encounter '05 Main Page.
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