Annual Camp Trip!

DAY 1

I don’t remember ever packing so much STUFF for our annual 8 day, 7 night camping trip.

(Bryan's work van was also filled)

I think we decided to pack more indoor activities because of the gloomy, storm -every -day weather forecast. Luckily, camp is in a very heavily wooded area, so unless there is torrential downpours, the trees deflect much of the rain. It was a bit hard to make any plans, not knowing when the rain would appear, but we didn’t let that stop us- if we got wet, we got wet, we were always a bit soggy anyway from all the humidity next to the stream.

We made it to our rustic cabin without a hitch, and didn’t forget anything. That’s always a great start! :)

This year we rented cabin #4, its only 2 rooms, and sleeps 4. We have rented bigger cabins in the past, but we enjoy having only one bedroom with a larger kitchen/living area.

Side of the cabin showing the porch

This is how the beds are set up

But we move them together
Living /kitchen area
Fireplace for winter
The porch- where we spent much of our time this year from the rain
This is our outhouse. Not too far of a walk from this cabin.
Our water supply

The kid’s first adventure was the stream, throwing rocks, catching crayfish and jumping into the pool area of the stream, thanks to the handy dam that people have kept up for at least 2 decades.

The kids got along great

On the way to the first of many outhouse trips, we spotted a beautiful white tailed deer. She stood there watching us as intensely as we watched her for several minutes.

Next we went to find bugs and salamanders. By we, I mean Rylan and I. Brayden is just not that into creatures. He’d rather be playing catch.
We found quite a few salamanders, but even more interesting was the numerous amounts of centipedes all around. I’ve never seen so many before. They were EVERYWHERE for 2 days.

Night one was filled with cool fresh air, a warm fire and gooey s’mores!
The boys both wanted to sleep on the top bunk, but Bryan and I were too nervous to get decent sleep worried they’d get disoriented and fall.

DAY 2
It was a nice morning. Rylan got up early with me and we cuddled out on the porch and read some books. We headed out to fish near the rangers station. No luck, but the kids still had a great time, and I must say they inherited Grandpa’s casting abilities.

While Daddy ventured across the stream to untangle the fishing line on the branch, the kids and I walked to the rangers station. The rangers are VERY nice and interesting to talk with, and always have something neat to show the kids. We looked at the stuffed bear in a display case, and the ranger gave each of the boys a activity book about the park.

Later in the afternoon, we drove down to the big playground.
For the first time, Brayden was able to successfully cross the very long, tall monkey bars.
Rylan eventually did it too, even with sore, blistering hands. We brought our baseball stuff to make use of the large field nearby. Brayden was excited to find an old backstop at the corner of the field, and was even more thrilled to find an old baseball behind it. We played baseball all afternoon.


When we got back to the cabin area, we hunted more crayfish, had a scavenger hunt, then did some “learning” with worksheets I had printed abut camping and local wildlife.




This is the night the raccoons came out to raid our porch. Bryan and I got the kids to bed and went out to relax together on the porch. As we sat in the nice, comfy Adirondack chairs talking, a raccoon jumped onto the picnic table about 2 feet behind us. He hung out for awhile.
We tried to wake up the kids, but they were deep sleeping zombies and have no memories of the event at all!

DAY 3
Brayden and I woke up very early and had some cuddle time on the porch as I had some green tea. We took some pictures and walked around camp, exploring.


After breakfast, we went to hunt more crayfish and got the first large one.

The kids asked to go to “The Fart Bog”. Spruce Flats Bog is beautiful. It also stinks! If you poke a stick into the thick bog mud, it bubbles, makes gas releasing noise and lets out an awful, foul smell. Boy heaven! The lady in charge of Education at Winnie Palmer Nature Reserve was nice enough to offer me copies of a professor’s field notes about the bog, its history and ecology. It was very interesting, so we were able to have fun and learn a lot about bogs, their rare plants, and its history. *** I will be uploading a video of the bog very soon*****


We saw pitcher plants, sundew and bountiful blooming Mountain Laurel. After walking back to the parking area, we pulled out the baseball gloves and ball and had a good game of catch. While Rylan and I finished our lunch, Brayden’s pitching practice caught the eye of an hiking elderly man who stopped by to watch Brayden. After asking some questions about him (age, years of organized baseball experience, etc) he confessed he used to be baseball coach- for the Pirates! He said Brayden has wonderful talent and a career ahead of him.

Back at camp, we caught several HUGE crayfish and decided to cook them. None of us were too impressed.

Bryan’s co-worker, Bob came by, delivering a HUGE work van FULL of firewood!

The kids made friends with all of the nearby camp children and were toad hunting, played tag and brought out their action figures to play with together.

The rest of the evening and night was a rain out.

We all went to bed early on this night.

DAY 4
Another early morning spent on the porch with Brayden. I had tea while I read him the loooong version of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Then we played catch until we decided to wake Rylan and Bryan by growling and scratching at the bedroom window like a bear. Rylan woke up.

Brayden and I decided to go up the road to a trail where there were old rail tracks rumored to be from an old train that used to come through the area. We stopped at the ranger’s station for directions and learned the rail had been moved. Fortunately, there was a display of old pieces of rail and nails and some tools at the station, so we looked at those and talked about them and the park’s history. Maybe next year we can bring a metal detector. While at the ranger’s station, a deer crossed in front of our parked van.

For our next adventure, we hiked to Adam’s Falls.

This is a black widow spider

View from the top of the falls

After the hike, we stopped at the playground in the parking lot. This is the playground where Rylan hit his head so hard last year, his nose bled. We all remember that scary incident- every detail of it. While at the playground, both boys again mastered the monkey bars with great pride.

Whoa! Slow down, brother!

We then took a small walking adventure near the stream and found a fallen tree the kids named “the diving board” and a hollowed out tree for fun!

After returning to the cabin, we had watermellon, grapes and popcorn.


The rest of the day was a complete rain out. We pulled out the activity books from the rangers station, drawing material, and an Insect Identification book for Rylan.

The kids tried to stay up late enough to see raccoons, but they fell asleep in chairs by the camp fire.
Brayden wasn’t all that interested, so we took him to bed but were able to successfully wake Rylan to see a raccoon. He didn’t remember it the next day. Bryan and I stayed up for a bit and relaxed.

DAY 5
We hung out around camp for the morning, catching crayfish and salamanders. We then went across the road to walk across “nature’s balance beam”- an old SLIPPERY moss covered fallen tree stretched across the stream. The kids did well going across on their own.

I accidentally caught a baby salamander while looking through mud
"Are we done yet, I wanna play baseball"
There were about 50 salamanders in the container
"Do I have something on my shirt?"

Then we went up to the clearing near the ranger’s station to play some catch.
Brayden practiced his pitching for quite awhile, then Rylan and Bryan headed to the stream for more crayfish fishing. Brayden and I walked to some vines to swing like Tarzan,

We then hiked up to the old Rock quarry. This quarry supplied much of the rock needed to build the roads in Pittsburgh, carried out by the old railroad.Keeping Watch

Grandma and Uncle Mark came to visit in the afternoon. I drove uncle Mark up to see the Spruce Flats Bog. He was intrigued. Grandma stayed back at camp with Rylan and Bryan and got to see Rylan’s expert crayfish fishing skills.
A faun crossed the stream at the camp nearby, and we followed it across the road to the stream. She was beautiful and very calm, for all of us watching her.

We all went to bed early this night, preparing for the next day at Idlewild.

DAY 6
On our 6th day (the ONLY day without rain) we spent the day at Idlewild. We didn’t take any pictures, because they are posted on a previous blog.

Rylan fell asleep on the way back to the cabin, then spent the evening catching more crayfish
until we took a break for Bryan to try to pull out Bray’s loose tooth- it had been hanging for about 2 months.

Later in the evening, after Brayden’s tooth bothered him too much to eat dinner, he decided to allow Bryan to pull it out. He was nervous, so I read him Curious George during it, and he did great. It came out, and he was relieved and thrilled!

After dark, Rylan and I went bug hunting. There’s a big bright light for the outhouse, and it attracts many moths. We weren’t having much luck there, so we decided to explore the nearby trees. Each tree’s bark came alive that night! We found moths, caterpillars, centipedes, beetles, slugs, fireflies and spiders. We got to watch a spider spin its prey in her web. After going back to the outhouse light, a very large (4 inch wingspan) moth did appear, but would fly off and only return to the high light and we were unable to reach it. Rylan was very skilled at catching the other moths and fireflies with his net. He had such a great time, he was so excited to see the forest come alive at night with creepy crawlies, and try to catch them!

On our way back to the cabin from our insect hunt, we found Bryan and Brayden at the campfire, snuggled up with flashlights hoping to see a raccoon. Minutes later, we saw not only one, but two! Bryan had a large 5 gallon bucket containing Rylan’s crayfish he had caught earlier. The raccoons dumped the bucket over, held the pinchers back and ate them- shell and all. The kids got a big kick out of watching them eat and were interested in how they’d growl and try to dominate each other for the crayfish.
*****Raccoon video will be uploaded soon*********

Soon it was time for bed- PAST bedtime actually (10:30)! Rylan and I walked to the outhouse one last time before going to bed and found a HUGE centipede!
Brayden was happy to put his tooth under his pillow in hopes the tooth fairy could find it- in the woods, at a cabin, on the top bunk.

I was able to stay up only a bit longer with Bryan before heading to bed myself.

DAY 7
Brayden woke up at around 7:30 excited to see that the Tooth Fairy came! Bryan took him out this morning to let Rylan and I sleep in. After we got up Rylan and I walked to the rangers station to see the train track, then it began to rain.

In the afternoon, we went took the kids to Flat Rock for their fist time. On our hike there, we encountered a very large spider, and an old broken down stone house.
Where did Rylan go? Oh, sitting behind the house on a cliff's edge of course.
The boys enjoyed keeping guard at the "castle in the woods".

Flat Rock is part of the Linn Run park that’s in the large stream. There is about ½ mile hike to get to the long, flat smooth stream bed that’s a natural water slide. Its extremely slippery and can be quite dangerous, so we waited until this year to take the kids, feeling more confident of their balance and ability to remember to walk slowly, etc. The kids enjoyed it, including ME! A man offered to let us use his kid’s inner tubes, and that allowed Rylan to slide down the stream MUCH faster. Once, he went down so quickly, he rounded a turn and began to float further down the stream, towards a rapids area. Luckily I was not far behind him and was able to get him in time.
********Video of Flat Rock will be uploaded soon********

After hiking out, we played at the little wooden playground near the parking lot and had a picnic lunch. We then drove down to the bigger playground and baseball field. Soon it began to get very dark, so we didn’t get a whole lot of time to play, but Rylan was able to play on the equipment and Brayden and I were able to get some distance throwing practice in.

Once the rain came, it didn’t stop. The camp area was flooded and Bryan wasn’t feeling well. After some thought, we decided to go home that night instead of the next morning. The kids were upset, but we explained there was nothing to do except be stuck in the cabin for another hour or so until bedtime, then we’d be leaving first thing in the morning anyway.

The kids said their goodbyes to their new friend they met at camp, a 9 year old boy named Jeffrey.

Its nice to be home, although I miss being there. The dogs were very excited to see us, as the kids were to see them.