Scene on the Road

On Week 8's road trip, I'm driving north on Route 309, with a detour into Bethlehem, home of Musikfest - which after over twenty years is still one of the world's largest FREE music festivals. Joe Trani, at right pulling cable - a DT-12 audio snake - through the Polka tent, is one of many workers still setting up for Friday's opening. Tickets ($18-$49) are required for the big name performers like Ludacris, B.B. King, Meat Loaf, Deep Purple, Stone Sour and the Black Crowes. All the other - more than 500 - musical performances on 13 indoor and outdoor stages throughout Bethlehem’s historic downtown are free.

But I'm missing all the music, and photos. So I'm asking for YOUR photos (not your music). I'll post them before the festival ends in ten days. Send them as email attachments (with caption info: who and where) to me at roadtrip@phillynews.com

There's also lots of food, children’s activities, arts and crafts, closing-night fireworks, and tons of vendors, like Mike Ginsburg, who I met setting up his tent. He's originally from Cherry Hill, but now lives in NYC's East Village when he's not traveling to fairs around the country selling silver jewelry and Rock t-shirts.

Oh, and along the way, I also stopped by the Eagles training camp at Lehigh University to hang around with the fans.

Those photos will start showing up in this space on Saturday, so please check back tomorrow, and all week long.

I'm taking a detour off Route 309 to go into Bethlehem for the Eagles Training Camp, the 12th year the team has started the season at Lehigh University. Bill Watkins, from Tulsa, Oklahoma visiting family in Mays Landing, plays catch beside the bleachers before the players take the field.

The old coach's theory used to be that camp held in a remote location would develop a team chemistry, but only about half the NFL teams still travel to an out-of-the-way location for their training camp anymore, most deciding that unlike baseball's ritual spring training, it's not worth packing up everything for a such a short camp.

"We keep adding seats and they keep filling up," says Eagles President Joe Banner on the team website about crowds that are reaching into the double digit thousands each day.

Since home game seats are hard to come by, and regular season practice fields at the NovaCare Complex are closed to the public, these free twice-daily practices are the only way for most fans to experience the team.

Following morning practice, fans with selected lottery numbers have an opportunity to get autographs from a different group of pre-selected players and coaches each day. In the afternoon, the autograph tent is one of the few areas with shade...

...the team merchandise tent is another.

Camp closes before the first pre-season game Aug. 13 in Baltimore, so the last day to check out all the action will be Aug. 11. Click for directions.

Besides the shopping tent, there is a kid zone where young players can test their football skills, or get a free souvenir photo with a cardboard Donovan McNabb (without the knee brace). Fifteen year-old Alison Worthington, on the left, and her friend Alexa Parrila, 16, of Royersford posed for their photo...

...as did Helene Dempsey of Palmerton. She brought her grandkids Dustin, Madison and Hunter.

A day of field goals in the Kid Zone - even kicked with size 4 shoes - can take a toll.

Twenty year-old Doc Stacknick of La Plume fields the kicks. At the end of practice, as I leave Lehigh headed back toward 309, I pass three kids on the side of Mountain Road, behind their homes.

Twelve year-old Ryan Kern, rear, his brother Kevin, 7, and Paul Roth, 11, holding the sign, missed out on autographs when they attended camp yesterday, so they went swimming today. Then they came up with the idea of letting the players come to them. A couple Eagles honked horns as they drove by. My back was to the road, but Ryan says he saw Donovan smile and wave through the half-open window of his white SUV.

My week 8 road trip on Route 309 toward Allentown was cut short by a detour and a day spent at the Eagles training camp, along with a stop to see preparations for Musikfest in Bethlehem. I had to leave before the ten day music festival with hundreds of free performances even got underway.

These are two of MY photos from LAST year, but I'm still looking for YOUR Musikfest photos this week so I can post them here. Send them as email attachments to Roadtrip@phillynews.com

I also didn't make it north of Allentown, but Ann Spaeth of Miquon did. She and her husband have a Christmas tree farm in Berks County and she sent me some photos of old covered bridges in Lehigh County, not far off Route 309. Below is her photo of Rex's Bridge (1858) on Jordan Road, over Jordan Creek.

Ann has always loved old barns. She tells me when she was younger, her grandparents had a "very old" farm in Chester County, where she and her brother spent hours playing in the barn. Later, she had a friend who lived on Harts Lane in Lafayette Hill, where she recalls, "there was a big barn on the corner of Ridge Pike, where Ace Conference Center (formerly Eagle Lodge) and golf course are located." She would go there "to climb up the high, built in ladders and jump in the hay."

Ann sees covered bridges as specimens of the same period in time as those old barns, with "the same elegance and sturdiness." She wanted to take these pictures "for the future to remind family members of their grandeur." Below is Schlicher's Bridge (1882) on Trexler Game Preserve Road, also over Jordan Creek.

I got the dates and descriptions from the website of Drexel economics professor Roger A. McCain, who tells me the it was the bridge's "pictorial appeal" that first hooked him, along with "and a general interest in local history/historic archeology." Below is Ann's photo of Geiger's Bridge (1860) on Orchard Road, also over Jordan Creek.

They're not as famous as the ones in Madison County, Iowa but the "Bridges of Pennsylvania" have provided Spaeth, McCain and many others a "fun reason for a drive in the country." The professor says on his web site that "covered bridges symbolize small-town America. Something from the nineteenth century, a little archaic and strange to nineteen-nineties eyes (his site's been around a while), picturesque and sentimental, 'kissing bridges' recall a time when life was simpler and closer to the land -- if only in our dreams."

Bedsides the visiting of baseball parks I've discussed previously, there are many subjects photographers "collect" with cameras. Sound like another invitation to send me your photos? How about Mail Pouch Barns? These are chewing tobacco advertisements which were painted on the sides of barns in Pennsylvania, Appalachia and the Midwest, starting in the late 1890's as billboards. Many of the ads, which are now National Historic Landmarks, are fading slowly into roadside history.

This is one of my photos of a Mail Pouch Tobacco barn outside of Kane in McKean County, from a road trip I took along Pennsylvania's Route 6 a few years ago.

I have a newspaper assignment that will take me to Wyoming County this week. After taking the Northeast Extension up past Scranton and shooting the assignment, I plan to drive home on Route 309 for a Part II Road Trip. So Week 9's Road Trip will be whatever I discover between the coal region and Allentown.