A look around the Tse-Tse Fly and environs

Note: Please read "Onward to Wellsboro, more or less" before you read this one. Somehow they got published out of order and I can't figure out how to fix it. Sorry.

We had quite the wild ride getting to “Johnny-town” the previous day, and only stopped once, while lost, in a general store where Joyce picked up the bare minimum of stuff, because that was all they had. Now, how could we get lost with a GPS? By inputting the destination Johnny gave us, of course. He said the actual address wouldn’t work. So we ended up against the side of a hill, wondering what to do next. But we retraced our steps and the guy in the store knew Johnny, everyone does, and he directed us. Later on when I found out the actual street address of the Tse-Tse Fly, voila! Sam took us straight to it.

Well, imagine our surprise when on arrival at the cabin, it was RIGHT ON THE ROAD. I mean the main road through Johnny-town, where 18 wheelers scream through day and night. This is one of those things you can never tell from the internet, and the owner won’t tell you, either. Renting a house of any kind is a crap-shoot. You just have to hope for the best. So we had thought it was on a back road, up a hill, on a mountain, in a forest, something like that. But no, it’s at the edge of Johnny-town on the highway. In other words, a very dangerous place for dogs, especially Ollie, who is a door dasher. So the first thing we wanted to do was secure the place so they could get out.

The doors were wide open and the most God-awful country music was blaring. Turns out Johnny is an aficionado, as is everyone else in north central Pennsylvania. All country, all the time. We got him to shut it off so we could hear him, we said, but we never did turn on the radio in that place again except trying to find news, which is an interesting story for later. So Johnny started showing us the house and Joyce, who has the patience of a hungry hyena, interrupted and got him to show us how to take the dogs into the run, so she could inspect it first. Well, there were two ways and Johnny is a talker and he showed us both while Joyce was fuming but she finally got into the run and satisfied herself that it was secure. Then we took the dogs back there and they just loved it.

In the top picture below, you can see all three a lot bettter if you click to enlarge. The second picture just shows our 18-year old, Nick. The dark dog is Ollie and the tawny gold is Stella.

This was our reason for choosing the Tse-tse Fly to begin with: an actual dog run right off the back door. And it's huge and even had trees inside it, which you can see. While I stayed with the dogs for additional security, Johnny showed Joyce all around the tiny house and she was just appalled. At first. We grew to like it but at first, it seemed impossible. It’s not a place I would have chosen had I somehow been able to see the whole thing, but all I had was the still photos on the site and it looked okay, really.

Finally he more or less left, by which I mean he removed himself to another nearby structure, and we unloaded the van. It was truly a beautiful day and despite Joyce’s wailing about unloading I took pictures because who knew what the weather would be like tomorrow or any other day? And it was a damned good thing I did. Because after that, it rained for part of every day we were up there. We had some clear weather, too, but it wasn’t as though you could depend on it.

Reminder of code names: Johnny = pseudonym for the guy we rented our cabin from Johnny-town = pseudonym for the village where we stayed. Kettle Creek = nice pseudonym for Johnny's rental house Tse-Tse Fly = not-nice pseudonym for Johnny's rental