🧘🏽 Peace and quiet | Outdoorsy Newsletter

The outdoors can be a refuge, an open space giving us some bliss away from our fast-paced lives. Let’s slow down and travel to a handful of places in Pennsylvania recognized for their serenity.

Plus, a handful of fun things are happening in the sky, on the ground, and in the waters across our region. There’s also a superstar camel in our neck of the woods. Later on, allow me to calm your fears on the invasive jorō spider that has officially landed in Philly’s backyard.

🌧️ Your weekend weather outlook: Showers are likely today and Saturday, mostly due to remnants of Hurricane Helene (ultra-dry Philly could use the rain). Sunday should be mostly cloudy.

— Paola Pérez (outdoorsy@inquirer.com)

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Traffic. Sirens. Seemingly never-ending construction. All of that noise can get really overwhelming, really fast.

Then you step one foot into nature, and it’s as if “noise canceling” just turned on, as Jason Nark perfectly describes it.

Research shows that hitting the mute button is mentally and physically healing. It makes us “healthier and happier human beings.”

And it’s good for wildlife, too — less noise means it’s easier for them to communicate and sense danger.

Nark reports on rural parts of Pennsylvania and the outdoors far from urban life, so he’s well versed on where to find swaths of silence in our area. Two of these respites are right here in Philadelphia.

From Fairmount Park to vast forests out west, keep reading to find peace and quiet, near and far, in Pennsylvania, and enjoy this minute-long ASMR of stillness in Pa. parks.

P.S. I’d love to hear where you go to escape city life. Reply to this email with your story.

🎤 Now we’re passing the microphone to Jason Nark. You’ll always find his work here. Here’s one I wanted to bring you from 2018.

Einstein is pacing on a muddy driveway in Bucks County, occasionally stealing kisses from a tall woman, but mostly looking like he’s got somewhere better to be. The clock is ticking on his 15 minutes of fame, and everyone wants a piece: car dealerships, local bars that made drinks in his honor, and even universities that hire him so stressed-out students can pet him before finals. Then there are the nativity scenes. Einstein can’t keep track of all the wise men he’s known, if a camel could keep track of things.

Einstein is a dromedary camel, a “one-humper,” his owner says. His kind is native to Egypt, Africa, and Australia, places where winter requires, at the most, a cardigan. But Einstein, who was born in Florida 11 years ago, took a brief journey in the snow on Nov. 15 after his trailer got stuck on Route 309 north in Souderton, Montgomery County. He was on his way to a Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia event at the Kimmel Center. People took pictures, the internet swept them up into its own bizarre storm, and while Einstein never made it to Philly, he made it to something.

“I never knew what a meme was before this,” says Charis Matey, owner of Peaceable Kingdom Petting Zoo in Perkasie. “He’s got about 20 of them now, and one of them is with the Flyers mascot. Somebody posted the two of them together.” Matey, sporting fresh scratches on her neck from a reluctant groundhog, flashes a dinged-up flip phone to prove she doesn’t know what a meme is. — Jason Nark (Dec. 2018)

Discover what it’s like to live a hectic day in the life as Einstein the camel.

It’s true. The invasive jorō spider has landed in Bucks County.

A few months ago, I told you not to fear the jorō. Still, the giant flying arachnid is reasonably spooky to some. If you’re anything like me and you cringe over creepy crawly things, I understand your anxiety.

Let me rip the bad news bandaid: There’s not much we can do to stop them from spreading. It’s too early to tell how they could impact our ecosystems.

The silver lining? They’re not venomous, they don’t really bite when threatened, and they aren’t dangerous to people or pets.

Read on to get the facts and calm some concerns.

📮 Give us a review of your outdoors experience for a chance to be featured in this newsletter by emailing me back.

My autumn playlist is already shaping up nicely. How about yours?

Here’s a song from mine (and an eternal thank you to Stevie Nicks): “And the summer became the fall / I was not ready for the winter / It makes no difference at all / Cause I wear boots all summer long.”

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