This field trip will offer various photographic opportunities during the peak of fall foliage and will coincide with the Bedford PA Fall Foliage Festival. The trip will include a morning visit to Old Bedford Village, and various afternoon alternatives such as photographing covered bridges, sites along the Old Lincoln Highway and other interesting areas in Bedford and the surrounding countryside. Information on Bedford County various sites can be found at the Bedford County Visitors Bureau: http://www.visitbedfordcounty.com. We will provide copies of the brochures mentioned below before the field trip.
We will meet in the parking lot of Old Bedford Village at 9:30 a.m. The Village is located at 220 Sawblade Rd., Bedford PA 15522 (just off US 220 BUS between the Bedford PA Turnpike exit and the town of Bedford). Driving time from Northern Virginia is about 2½ hours.
Old Bedford Village is a wonderful collection of historic homes, shops, schoolhouses, with numerous craftsmen, and characters. The admission fee is $10. For more information see: http://www.oldbedfordvillage.com/index.php
We will meet for lunch at Ed’s Steakhouse at 12:30 p.m. The address is 4476 US 220 BUS, Bedford PA 1522; the restaurant is about five minutes north of the entrance to Old Bedford Village.
After lunch, NVPS members have several options for photographing sites in the surrounding area:
The downtown historic building tour, starting with The Bedford County Visitors Bureau, 31 South Juliana St., offers some interesting shots of historic houses, churches and the iconic 1933 Dunkle’s Gulf Gas Station. The Visitors Bureau has a great array of information and maps on things to see and photograph both downtown and in the countryside. The downtown walking tour is described in “Learning Architecture” brochure. The downtown will be very crowded with crafts displays, food vendors and entertainment. Parking will be difficult, so you may wish to park at Old Bedford Village for $5.00 and take a shuttle bus downtown.
The county’s 14 covered bridges are described in detail in the excellent “Covered Bridges” brochure. This brochure has detailed information on each bridge including map location and GPS coordinates. Bridges 5-13 are centered along RT 96 in the western portion of the County and provide the best bet for seeing the most bridges. Bridges 5, 6 7,10 and 13 appear to offer good photographic opportunities. Please note that some of the bridges are hard to locate unless you have a GPS. In some cases the bridges may be obscured by dense vegetation (which may be good in the fall). Intrepid photographers may bring appropriate footgear and take photos from stream level. Shawnee State Park, located between bridges 6 and 7 should provide some good fall foliage shots.
If you are heading west to photograph the covered bridges you can stop along US 30, to enjoy various sites commemorating the Old Lincoln Hwy, the Nation’s first coast-to- coast hwy. These include historic structures, old gas pumps, the 1806 log church, and barn murals. The tour is described on pages 46 and 47 of the Bedford County Visitor’s Guide.
Another rural tour option is the scenic Morrison’s Cove Driving tour, which winds through the countryside northeast of Bedford, including the area around the Waterside Woolen Mill. This tour is described on page 48 of the Bedford County Visitor’s Guide.
In addition, The Flight 93 Memorial, honoring the men and women lost on September 11, 2001, is located 23 miles west of Bedford on Hwy 30.
Note: To facilitate sign-ups, please download this fillable .PDF to your desktop, fill it out on your computer, save it using your name as the file name, and attach it to an e-mail and send it to field-trips@nvps.org