It was the perfect weekend for camping. We pulled out and dropped the trailer off at Codours State Park on Thursday night (boy I wish I could have stayed with it over night). It was was that perfect sit around the campfire type weather.
Friday night, I worked until 7 PM, ran home and picked up the dog and headed out to the campsite. The dog an I arrived around 8:30 just as it started to pour buckets from the sky. The only thing missing was the thunder and lightning show. I made some clam chowder, from a can, and had some crackers and a nice warm mug of tea and listened to the rain and wind hit the camper. I wished I had all my letterbox material (it was in the car in the extra car lot… just far enough that I was not going to walk it in the driving rain) so that I could have finished up my boxes during the storm.
So in light of something better to do, I laid on the bunk end and opened the screen windows on the side that wasn’t getting pelted and enjoyed the smell, sights and sound of fresh rain pouring thought the windows. Doggie curled up on a ball on top of me and did the same… after about 30 min, doggie wanted someplace a little warmer and got down and started to paw at the blanket. So I picked up the blanket and let her crawl under. She’s such a little person some days.
The girls came in from the football game around 10:30 – 11 PM and we had another round of soup, snacks, and hot chocolate before turning in for the night. With the rain, it had become much colder and it was still quite windy out. It would be a good night to be snuggled in under the covers.
Saturday saw a beautiful morning, cool fall like weather… but not cold. The morning was a bit breezy, but over all it was enjoyable. We cooked a breakfast of sausage, scrabbled eggs and coffee cake. We ran off to Hanover and did some shopping and I bought some more sketch pads and ink pads for future letterboxes and then we came back for a nap. shopping makes the girls tired.
After nap time, we took a walk and bought some fire wood from the camp host. We started up a fire as it became dusk and then started to cook some dinner. We had made some home made stromboli (I use that term loosely). We took a package of crescent rolls, put some salami down, and then some string cheese in the center and wrapped that up. Put that in a foil package and bake on the grill grate over the camp fire…. and you’ve got baked goods in 20 min. We also fired up some packaged soup. It was a cool-ish evening but the kind where you can really enjoy the camp fire. The breeze was being predictable, so the smoke was going in one direction…. I hate it when it follows you around the fire ring. Once everyone had gone to bed, I started to get my letterboxes together for a Sunday deployment.
Sunday morning was down right cold… but it warmed up quickly and turned out to be a gorgeous day for dropping off a few letterboxes. After breakfast, the girls headed home (around 10 am) and I finished up my boxes. I had four boxes to put out before the park campground closed for the season and I needed to vacate my camping space by 3 PM. I had Where’s Pappa Bear (Hitchhiker), Nut, Dutch Oven, and Apple Pie to put out on the trail. My last three were placed more on the Black Rock Road side of the park and I wanted some things closer to the camp ground so that you could walk a loop and have lots of things to find in different places.
I started hunting for locations around noon and was able to place all the boxes by about 2:45 PM. I was also able to work out my "bonus box" scenario; however, I’m not sure how it will work out from a clues stand point on-line. It would not take too much to figure out. It would be nice if you could hide a box until you found another like you do with the Found / Placed numbers.
After placing the final box, it was time to go back and wrap a few things up and head off to the dump station. As I was leaving the park, it was sad to think that another camping season has come to a close. Tonight I’ve got to run my camper over to Mountville, PA and drop it off for some service and to get a recall notice item taken care of with my refrigerator.
