The first stop is Bellefonte Nuclear Plant, a partially-built nuclear power plant. It was shut down in 1986 due to massive cost overruns, but the cooling towers still grace our skies.
There's probably some folks thinking "Why did they destroy that beautiful landscape?" Well, look at the next picture and you can see that nature can recover all by herself.
As we move further out of downtown Hollywood, we come across another of man's vain attempts to destroy natural beauty.
But as you can see, the beauty of Poorhouse Mountain still remains. This is a rock-crusher plant that is a few miles from my home. It has been out of operation for a few years, but there are rumors of opening it back up. It would actually be a good thing - the trees are already gone, and the gravel is needed for construction. A far better alternative than putting up a new strip mine somewhere else.
This is one of the oldest, if not the oldest, standing building around. It actually dates beyond the Civil War (guess the Yankees missed one, huh?). It was in dis-repair for a long time, but it has been bought by someone who apparently has restored it to it's former glory.
The Moody Brick was the home for years of the Moody family. There is a family cemetary in the side yard that bears the tombstones of many ancestors. Until the repairs, this house showed the scars and remains of years long gone. There were pock-marks in the brick from the Civil War, the old slave galleys in the basement were still there, along with the chains and stocks of that era. It was rumored to be haunted, but the Redneck checked it out in his younger days - no ghosts to be found (what did you expect?). This old house has many tales to tell and I for one am glad to see that it has been restored so that it's beauty and grandeur can be admired by generations yet to come!
But to really appreciate the area around Hollywood, we need a better view. These were taken from the top of Crow Mountain, one of the tallest mountains around here.
Well, we're almost done. I hope you have gotten a glimpse into why we here love this land so much. It's almost impossible to put some things into pictures, the openness, the beauty in all directions regardless of exactly where you are. Maybe this page will even do some good for the country. Maybe some of the enviromental "freaks" will actually see that we have not lost our natural splendor, it just went to Hollywood!
