Heading to French Creek State Park, PA

October 2, 2023

We left Doolittle Station on September 11 (Monday), heading back onto I-80 east.

Most of the route was along I-80 east, but at some point our GPS took us along some backroads to French Creek State Park.

Once we arrived at French Creek State Park, I got out to see if there was an envelope at the campground entrance area.

I didn’t find an envelope, so Bruce checked his email and got the loop and site number. I did grab a map, so we were able to navigate straight to our site.

Bruce was able to back into our site without much effort. Since we were only able to get four nights, Bruce didn’t get the motorcycle out.

Bruce called his sister (my sister-in-law) to let her know we had made it.

She invited us to come over with Nox.

Bruce removed the top part of the hitch and covered the rest with old towels. We carried out the F. Scott Fitzgerald bookcase half and tied it to the truck bed.

We then drove to my sister-in-law’s to reunite the bookcase halves.

The story behind the F. Scott Fitzgerald bookcase is as follows.

Bruce’s grandfather lived in Paris before WW II as a traveling secretary for an executive at GE. Bruce’s grandfather knew many other Americans in Paris. He happened to know F. Scott Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald was having a “sidewalk sale” to raise some cash when Bruce’s grandfather bought the bookcase from Fitzgerald.

Fitzgerald wasn’t anyone famous at the time, so when Bruce’s grandfather got the bookcase home and found it was too long, Bruce’s grandfather cut the bookcase in half. He added end boards on the cut sides of the bookcase, giving him two bookcases.

Much later, Bruce’s mother gave one bookcase half to Bruce and the other bookcase half to my sister-in-law. My mother-in-law said if we ever needed to get rid of the bookcase, it needed to go to Bruce’s sister.

I like to think the trip from Denver, CO to Pennsylvania this year was fulfilling Bruce’s mother’s wish.

As an aside, there is no paperwork showing that the bookcase was bought from F. Scott Fitzgerald.