Another year, another camping trip. This year we had to change location because our traditional place was closed. We thought we were going to be outta luck, but we managed to actually get in a spot for the 4
th of July weekend. This year we went to Cook Forest, in northwestern PA. nice place!!! Way better than where we have been going.
Of course, Sean is the fire master. While the girls sit ready with sticks to play in the fire :)
This would be the girls gathering firewood.
lol, or in actuality, peeling the bark off the poor defenseless trees. The campgrounds were really nice, mostly pine trees with lots of room between sites.
This would be how the three of these guys spent most of the weekend.
looking for crayfish. Not sure what the
fascination is, but...... Sean taught Sabrina & Abby and now this is what they like to do. uh, okay :)
They attempted to go fishing. There wasn't anything biting. at all. But it was a good excuse to sit in the shade, next to the river, on a really hot day.
The river we camped near isn't very deep, in fact we went
canoeing and the bottom got caught at least twice. So the girls were able to get out in the river just about anywhere and have fun. Which they did. Although, we had a scare with Abby. The rocks are slippery in some spots and she fell and we were worried she may have broken her wrist. Oh, yeah, what a fun way to end a vacation instantly! but she was okay, scraped up, but ready for more fun. Well, ready after an hour with an ice pack on the wrist. ha
We took a walk after dinner one night and ended up here at an overlook. really nice place, beautiful view. There was talk of taking the trail down to the river, but it was vetoed, as the trail is REALLY steep, and we would have had to come back UP. Eh, no thanks!
This is a fire tower that is in the national park. It's no longer used for fire detection but you can still walk to the top. It's not nearly as tall as the light houses in the
Outer Banks, but for some reason I got to the last set before the top and couldn't go any farther. ha, so much for my not fearing heights. o well.
The view from the top. I made Sean take the camera up and take a picture. He tried to take one of me standing at the bottom of the tower, but since he doesn't know how to work the camera, it didn't come out. bonus!!
One of the cool things to do in the area is visit the Cathedral Forest. Old growth trees, over 200 years old. REALLY tall, and really huge. Thought this was cool that it had pulled out all this ground. Girls were annoyed that I made them stand there.
A really big
Lincoln log :) not sure what the notch was for, but it was big enough to sit in, so Abby did. There was another tree that was down, but it looked like a big seesaw, so the girls had to get on each end and pretend that that was what it was.
O look, catching crayfish. imagine that!
The last day we were swimming, etc. I found a cooler come moron had left on the bank of the river. So I grabbed it to throw away. Wouldn't you know, my family thinks it's a great place to keep crayfish they've caught. good grief! Sean used 2 of them to try and get some fish to bite, but nothing was hungry, so the girls threw the rest of them back in the river. The funniest part was, they had named ALL of the crayfish :) They are such girls!!
hahaha 
And this is what we got. The red and black berries had been completely picked over and were nothing more than dormant leaves and dead berries on the branches. We picked "purple" raspberries. Anyone ever heard of those? Us neither. Although I must say, they are rather tasty. They taste exactly like that raspberry flavor Kool-aid, and any other fake flavored thing:)
My nephew Bobby went with us. He's old enough to pick, but short enough to see under the branches. So he got quite a few.... before he got bored, and wanted to go to Peggy's and go swimmin'. Sine most of the berries were under the leaves and towards the bottom, we spent most of our time squating down and bending over. Not fun.
When Bobby wasn't picking, he was running between me and his mom, who was two rows over. He'd go "help" her, then come back to me.
We managed to get a little more than 7 pounds, and were able to make 3 batches of jelly for a total of 14&3/4 pints. Not bad for 2 hours of picking. Would have been nicer if we had gone a week earlier and the picking would have been easier. O well, maybe next year.
I have actually done the 6 at the front a few times and then left the rest of her hair down. It looks really cute. but when she takes it out, her hair is crazy poofy. She wanted the poofy. So the next morning, she took all the "little people" out and had some insanely crazy hair. I had to work, so I didn't see it, nor did I get a pic. Can't count of Sean for anything :)