the smedley log - suburban scrawl

It’s actually a pond

That’s just one of the things you might learn while visiting Lake Afton in Yardley, PA. But it is a pretty nice place to stop off on your way home from work on a late autumn afternoon. And if you bring along your camera, you might even be tempted to snap a few (say seventy or eighty) pictures while you’re there. The photo above is of an ancient postcard picture looking north on Main Street from the corner of Afton and Main.

It’s changed a lot since I was a little boy going to get my hair cut on Saturday mornings with my father. Another early memory of mine is a pre-school field trip to the old library by the lake. And then there’s the old postcard rendering looking north on Main Street which I tried to match with a modern day view of the same. On the sad side, I also got a shot of the Starbucks that now sits on the northwest corner of Main and Afton where Hyatt’s Pharmacy once was. I titled that shot, appropriately I think, “small town blight.”

Hideous symptoms of progress aside, this was a great way to while away 30 minutes or so. If you want, you can view my Flickr files from the excursion (fortunately, I culled it down to a tolerable sixteen shots).

You can learn more about the history of Yardley and Lake Afton by clicking here.

You know, I’ve driven past that lake (pond?) plenty of times (the in-laws are in Yardley)and never once thought of stopping.

I’ll have to bring my camera next time.

ACK … starbucks … was there another on the other corner?

Interestingly enough, I took the Starbucks shot from right in front of the Continental Tavern, which used to be a stop on the Underground Railroad. Strange that I didn’t think to snap a photo of that. The other two corners I don’t seem to recall quite so well…

And Mark:

I actually didn’t know it was ever referred to as a pond, I just learned that from reading the “Friends of Lake Afton” sign (of which I took a photo as well). I also never knew it was man-made. Guess you learn something new every day.

Only 16 out of 80?
What happened to the other 64?

That’s about the norm for me with a digital camera. It’s part that I’m not a great photographer to begin with, and part that I tend shoot everything that moves since I got a digital camera. The rest of the problem is that many of the photos you don’t see are relatively redundant, and since my Flickr account is a free one, I have taken the approach of being very selective as to which ones I upload.

And, to reiterate, I’m not that good a photographer, so the reality is that many of the remaining 64 just didn’t come out that well…

Sorry