First Campout of the Season with Two Happy Little Boys!

Shenandoah River State Park - View from the Overlook Trail

We took a quick camping trip on Monday with two of our youngest grandchildren who are five and eight. A lovely park close to home, Shenandoah River State Park, outside Front Royal, VA was the destination. One of the great blessing there? -- no cell or internet service!

Our Latest Travel Adventure: O Canada, Here We Come

Last year we had plans to take a camping vacation to Nova Scotia, but it was a bad years for our bees and we ended up staying home to feed them so they would have a chance of getting through the winter. Both our hives made it and we were blessed with a great season this year that let us expand to four hives. And so...our delayed trip was back on the calendar and we left yesterday on the first leg driving from Woodstock to Stafford Springs, CT which is close to...get ready...Woodstock. Today we spent the late morning and afternoon exploring.

Scenic River Float and the National Museum of Wildlife Art

September 27 - Tuesday

After breakfast we went to the KOA office to check on the scenic Snake River raft ride. Just in time - the ride was scheduled to go at 10:00 and it was quarter till. We ran back to the camper for sweaters and the camera, hopped in the KOA van for the ride over, and off we went. Our driver was a full time RVer, a retired electrician who works during the summer and then goes off to visit his kids when the campground closes in October. We've met lots of full-time RVers who either work or volunteer while they travel.

When we got to the river there were a half dozen rubber rafts being prepared. We donned the mandatory life jackets, got the safety speech on what to do if we fell in, and were assigned to a guide. Ours was a young college grad named Hunter who decided to spend a few years having fun before settling down. When summer season ends he plans to work for one of the ski places to get free skiing during the winter.

Our two hours on the river delighted us. A picture perfect fall day gave us beautiful views of colorful trees set against a blue blue sky and the bluegreen river. We saw several eagles including two brown-headed juveniles with their mother. A river otter swam by as well.

Hunter told us Harrison Ford owns 40 acres in the area and often participates in rescue operations with his helicopter. He told a story of a young woman being airlifted off the mountain with a broken leg. When the pilot turned around to ask how she was doing, she saw it was Harrison Ford and fainted dead away. We think it's a river guide story, but maybe it's true and the actor has some Indiana Jones blood in him for real.

After enjoying the real thing we drove to the National Museum of Wildlife Art. Patrons of early wildlife art were hunters. So often animals were portrayed as the perfect specimen. Many artworks showed the "heroic male" of the species boldly standing in the foreground of a natural setting.

We finished our day walking around Jackson and eating at the Teton Steakhouse which had a fabulous soup and salad bar as well as a good senior sirloin at a reasonable price. Another memorable day in the great state of Wyoming!

Shakedown Campout to Williamsport, Martinsburg, and Antietam

Every year at the start of camping season we take a short, shakedown campout to make sure everything is working and in good order. Usually we do this in early spring, but this year we've been delayed by one thing and another. We finally made it out the driveway pulling our Trailmanor, hard-sided popup on a short trip to Williamsport, MD's KOA arriving Thursday afternoon.

The KOA is lovely with an extensive garden and a great location along a creek with lots of shade trees. We got a lovely, level pull-through site that made set up a breeze.

We didn't check the camper at home and I was afraid we would open up to find mouse droppings or other nasty surprises, but happily all was well. The camper was as we left it when we closed it in October except for a some leaves and acorns and a few dead bugs. Everything worked when we turned it on including the air conditioner, thank God, because the temps were in the 90s. Our campsite was shady in the morning, but got the afternoon sun and would have been hot and uncomfortable without the AC. How spoiled we are!

After registering and setting up, we headed out to Williamsport on an exploratory adventure along the C and O canal where we walked two miles and visited lock 44. (You can read about that and our visit to Martinsburg here.... )

Then off to the Hagerstown Outlet Mall. I have enough junk at my house to maintain a thrift store for at least a month, but I needed some decent glasses. I hosted my book club this week and had a hard time putting out six that match. I know, I know...it doesn't matter, but it is a little thing with an easy fix. (Actually, the ones I was replacing were purchased at a thrift store. The standing joke in our family is that our house is furnished in early yard sale.) But after a visit to one of the kitchen stores at the mall, I now have ten MATCHING glasses, a real first.

The campground was very quiet on Thursday night and I had determined to sleep until I was ready to get up to play catchup after several bad nights and 2:00 a.m Eucharistic Adoration. So Friday morning I slept in and got up about 9:30, something I haven't done since last camping season. Larry was up about an hour before me and very graciously let me sleep. After breakfast we headed out to explore Martinsburg and Antietam.

Martinsburg is charming. We visited the childhood home of Confederate spy Belle Boyd, the railroad station including a 19th century roundhouse, and we admired the wide range of architecture in this town that was founded in the 1750s.  We had a wonderful lunch at a little Italian bistro. Check out my restaurant review.

After we finished exploring Martinsburg, we headed out to Antietam, the site of the bloodiest single day of conflict during the Civil War. Other battles had more casualties, but they were fought over several days. Walking the battlefield we prayed the Chaplet of Divine Mercy for all the poor souls who died there.

Our day ended back at the camper with a late dinner and a walk in the KOA gardens.

Saturday morning started out with cold showers (actually frigid!) because there was no hot water...not a good advertisement for any campground. I stood at the edge of the shower and washed gingerly. Larry said he took the plunge -- not me...I'm no polar bear!

We went back to Williamsport to look for a bike rental place and found one a few blocks from the canal path. Since we had to be out of our campsite by 1:00 p.m. we only had about an hour and took a leisurely five-mile bike ride. At one spot where the woods opened up to the Potomac river we saw a herd of deer on the farther bank drinking. There must have been a dozen. What a sight! It was a delightful way to end our trip.

We're home and unpacked and already looking forward to another short getaway which seems to be all we can manage these days, but they're as refreshing as a twenty minute nap or a brisk ten minute walk!

40 Years, but who's counting?

As of October 4th (Feast of St. Francis) Larry and I were married 40 years! Wow! What young couple thinks about reaching that milestone on their wedding day? I was too starry-eyed to think about anything but my handsome new husband.

We decided the event merited a second honeymoon, so we packed up our camper and headed out for ten days of fun in the sun. Well, not exactly. Our original plan was to go north into the Hudson Valley and visit the Shrine of the North American Martyrs and Niagara Falls. The weather report (highs in low 50s, lows in 30s) gave us a reality check and we decided to go south instead where the temps were about 20 degrees below normal, but not nearly as cold as the north. Good thing we shifted gears because the weather was bad, bad, bad in the northeast including the first snowfall of the year.

We headed to Wilmington, NC where we set down our temporary roots at the KOA for a week hoping to spend lots of time vegging out at the beach. Our trip down was pleasant. We spent the first (rainy) night at a KOA near Rocky Mount, but the weather next day was sunny and beautiful. North Carolina has some nice rest stops and I was shocked to see an azalea abundantly blooming when we stopped for a picnic. Does it bloom twice a year or was it just mixed up?





After a pleasant picnic lunch, we moved on to Wilmington. And yes, I did some of the driving. That's what I love about our Trailmanor. It's so easy to pull I'm comfortable doing some of the driving (as long as I don't have to back up). We pulled into the campground around 3:00 o'clock and set up. (To Be Continued...)

A Personal Story about John, who is My Hero!

Having begged for prayers for John, I want to share a personal story that reflects the kindness of my brother and one of the reasons he's so special to me. John is one of those people who really would give you the shirt off his back, not to mention the last dollar in his pocket. And he'd even get under his car to wire up electronic brakes to pull your camper.

Last year Larry and I were off on a two week trip to upstate New York and then to Vermont for my aunt and uncle's 50th wedding anniversary. We planned to camp in the Cascades and were really looking forward to a beautiful and restful vacation. Well...it didn't quite turn out as we planned.

Three hours into our trip, the transmission on our Trooper blew and we ended up stranded on the shoulder of an exit ramp waiting for double tow vehicles to pull our car and our camper to a service center in Lebanon, PA. It was the start of the Labor Day Weekend and there was no way we were going to get the car worked on for the next three or four days. So there we were in Lebanon hoofing it around town on foot, staying at a Comfort Inn about half a mile from the transmission repair place. We tried to rent a tow vehicle to pull our camper and continue our trip or pull it home. No dice unless we were a business with insurance. Then we tried to rent a car one-way to drive home. Nope! We didn't really want to rent for a week or turn around and come right back, so what to do? Any other alternatives?

Then the lightbulb went on. John will help! He has a Suburban with a tow package. So I called John and without a moment's hesitation he agreed to come and even said he'd enjoy the ride. I told him at the time he was my hero, and so he was and is. Now he's a wounded hero who needs all our prayers and support. You've got 'em, John. I love you!

And please pray for John's children as well, who are camping out at St. Agnes. This is a stressful time for everyone. When times are tough it's best to handle them with prayer.

Camping with Grandkids: How to have a ball!

We were camping the past three days with three of our grandchildren, ages 9, 7, and 4. My husband mentioned it to another mature (that's a polite way of saying old) camper at the rest room who said, "Why would you want to do that?" Wow! there's a man who doesn't enjoy his grandkids. Maybe he doesn't know the tricks of the trade. We had a fabulous three days, but we planned it. Here's our recipe for a happy camping trip with grandkids.

1) Choose the right place.
Larry and I love campgrounds that are heavy on hiking trails, waterfalls, and great views; and we don't much care what else they have. Those aren't the places we choose when we camp with the kids. We pick a campground with lots of things the kids can do independently. For this trip we chose a KOA close to home that offers: free miniature golf, ping-pong, pool, a fishing pond, a washer toss game, a well-equipped playground, horseshoes, and a swimming pool. It's only a little over 30 minutes from home and nestles in at the base of the Massanutten Mountain. We could have travelled 100 miles to get something similar, but we'd have to deal with "When are we going to be there? How much longer? I have to go to the bathroom...." (Well, you know the drill.)



2) Give the kids guidelines, but also a little freedom.
Midweek camping is great because campgrounds generally have plenty of empty sites and very little traffic. We let the children know we needed to know where they were at all times and they needed to stay together. We could take care of setting up camp and breaking down while they went exploring and enjoyed the fun stuff to do. We did a lot of things together, but they had the freedom to run around a little by themselves.

3) Include some off-site activities.

We had planned to go to the Luray caverns, but the younger two were having such a good time they didn't want to leave. We decided to do something closer to the campground and visited the Storybook Trail on the Massanutten Mountain. It has lots of rock formations that are fun to climb and be king (or queen) of the mountain.
It's only 1/4 mile long and ends at an observation deck with a beautiful view of the Luray Valley. And there's a great custard stand on the way home. The outing was only about an hour and half -- just long enough with the reward of ice cream at the end -- perfect!


The 9-year-old and I also took a "girls' outing" to the Green Valley Book Fair near Bridgewater, about 30 minutes from our campground. We spent a happy 45 minutes browsing all the books and choosing some special treasures to take home. The boys, who didn't want to go, spent the afternoon with Larry playing more mini-golf and everything else at least once.

4) Do some chores together.
Nobody gets a free ride when we go camping. The kids helped set the table and clear up and we all went wood-gathering together. That was so successful we had a great fire even in a sprinkling rain. Most of the wood was so dry it lit easily and got good and hot for cooking hot dogs and s'mores.



5) Say prayers and have as much fun as you can.
We believe "the family that prays together stays together." We said a morning prayer offering our day to God and a decade of the rosary around the campfire at night ending with bedtime prayers. We believe prayer helps us stay safe and agreeable. Since three can be a difficult number (especially with siblings) we had a motto for the outing. The kids were the three musketeers. Whenever there was a squabble beginning we reminded them of the campout motto: "All for one and one for all." That usually nipped arguments in the bud and kept everybody smiling.



We didn't see much wildlife on this trip so we took advantage of a photo op with the bears decorating the front of the campground office.


After we got home Larry commented that he never spent as much time with his grandparents as we just did. Me too. I only had one set of grandparents who lived far away and I could probably count the number of times I saw them (after we moved away from Cleveland when I was nine) on both hands. We don't want the same thing to happen with our grandkids because they are some of our favorite people on the planet. We love camping and kids so combining the two is definitely a win-win situation. Can't wait for the next fun adventure!

Hit the trails - but don't forget your hiking poles!

There's no better way to explore nature than to lace up a pair of hiking boots and hit the trails. Whether you're in a park or a national forest the variety can be amazing. Even the same trail can look completely different travelled in the opposite direction or at a different time of the day. We found this to be especially true of Blackwater Falls. What a variety of trails!

We hiked about eight miles within the park during our three-day visit as well as a four-miler round trip into the Monongahela National Forest on the Allegheny Trail. Put on your virtual hiking boots and pick up your poles and walk along with us.

The Balsam Trail starts at the Blackwater Falls campground and meanders through a green wood absolutely covered with Christmas Tree ferns. You could have called this the Christmas walk as a matter of fact. Growing up my dad always bought a balsam fir to decorate and they were everywhere. I never realized how large they could grow as you can see from the photo below where I'm absolutely dwarfed by the tree (and you can't even see the angel on the top!). The branches were all weighed down from the heavy rains during the night. I was tempted to lift them up and see if any of Santa's elves were hiding there.



We walked the Elakala Falls and Balanced Rock trails which both meandered through dark woods which reminded me of Bilbo Baggins adventures in Mirkwood. The deep shade from the hemlocks allowed very little underbrush to grow but the rhodadendrons didn't seem to mind the gloom as much. They proliferate throughout the park. It would be a glorious sight to be there when they are in full bloom, but they had already finished.



The trail head of the Balanced Rock path was in the cabin area where someone or a group of someones had built a visual of the trail's name.





My favorite walk of our trip was a cross country ski trail (a portion of the Gee Haw) that intersected to Spudder Track. We picked it up on the road to the nature center and turned right on Spudder Track to head over to Pendleton Point lookout. The track was a grass path cut through a meadow bordered by woodland overflowing with blooming mountain laurel, one of my favorite flowers.



The walk out of the park was an adventure in itself. Once we got into the woods, the Allegheny Trail was narrow and much of it along a rocky, wet track that obviously becomes a streambed in heavy rains. We called it the shlerp trail because we often found ourselve in muddy footing with a sucking slurping sound at each step. We definitely needed our poles and boots for this hike. Even so I lost my footing on a wet rock and went down, but softly and didn't hurt anything but my pride. It did get me thinking about what to do if one of us got really hurt on a hike. You wouldn't walk out with a broken hip, that's for sure. We trecked as far as the first shelter which was about two miles from the point we left the park. It looked like a nice dry place to spend a night in the woods for overnighers. We are day hikers with no interest in carrying the kind of equipment needed for sleeping in the woods. (I love my bed!)



Our last hike of the trip was a circuit made from a section of the Yellow Birch Trail, the Red Spruce Riding Trail (The name is a holdover from the time the park operated a stable.), and the Water Tank Trail (yes, there's a huge water tank). The portion of the Yellow Birch was the most difficult of the trip with lots of fallen trees, very rocky, and several places where we had to look for the blazes to stay on the path. One spot required climbing through a narrow opening between two rocks with a three foot drop on the other side. Wow! I was sure happy we didn't leave the poles in the car.


Once we got to the Red Spruce and Water Tank sections it was a walk in the park -- with a wide path and easy footing. Near the petting zoo we met a group of guinea hens also out for a walk. They didn't mind pausing for a photo shoot.



And then, of course, we found the water tank. Do you think we could have missed it?



If you are hikers like we are and enjoy the great outdoors, if you aren't afraid of getting your feet muddy and having hat hair -- take a walk in the woods. There's plenty to see at Blackwater Falls. I'll finish with a photo taken from just one of the overlook spots (Lindy Point). It doesn't get better than this.

Blackwater Falls Interlude

Every now and then the call of the wild urges me to escape from my computer and head for the hills. When a few free days loomed Larry and I decided on a quick trip within about 100 miles. Blackwater Falls, West Virginia at 114 miles was just about perfect. And after spending three great days hiking the trails, watching the wildlife, and camping in the great outdoors I can sing the song with feeling..."Almost heaven, West Virginia."

Blackwater Falls isn't the only waterfall in the park, but it's the biggest and most impressive. The "black water," which is actually a deep brownish red like very strong tea, gets its distinctive color from the tanins in the pine needles. You can see the red in the white water rushing over the falls. Because of the wet spring the river was raging and the flow covered most of the rocky outcrop which is probably unusual. The photos in the shops all showed much more rock and much less water. What a blessing to see the falls at their most powerful. Although I expect whatever the flow - gentle or raging - it is a sight to behold.

The walk down to the falls is a pleasure with a long boardwalk/stairs - over 200 steps for the intrepid visitor. And that is a sight in itself meandering down through the woodland with the hemlocks towering overhead. The falls are surrounded by the hemlocks which grow to amazing heights. In the Shenandoah National Park they have almost disappeared because of an insect blight, but at Blackwater Falls they are the queen of the forest.



For those who can't physically make the trek down to the Falls, there are several other options. There's a walking path that goes down to an observation area. The view is a little obscured by the trees but you can hear the roaring water and see most of the falls. And for those who want the view without any significant walk, the Gentle Path is a great option. You see the falls from the opposite side of the gorge and higher up and the observation deck is only about 200 feet from the parking lot.



Often when you take a trip, the destination is everything. One of the greatest pleasures about this was the journey itself. From the time we were ten miles from home and travelling west on route 55 we were surrounded by beauty that kept us oohing and aahing all the way to the park. This was our first trip to Blackwater Falls, but certainly won't be our last.