How was your vacation?

My wife and I and two of my daughters decided to camp for two days and night in the Delaware Water Gap visiting Bushkill Falls, Pennsylvania and later we would camp for an additional two nights at Knoebles, a family-oriented amusement park.
We would leave Monday, and arrive home Friday afternoon.

We would meet my oldest daughter, my grandson, my in-laws and a friend that Wednesday afternoon.

Monday morning packed the car.
Problems: There was way too much stuff. I decided to leave the air mattresses behind.
Boy was it hot!

Left Monday 10 am. Uneventful travel to Bushkill Falls; we only made one wrong turn.
Air conditioning in the car helped make it bearable.
Arrived at the campsite around three PM.
Knats immediately began swarming us. I got five with one blow!
We quickly began to set up the tent.

Now this is no ordinary tent. It has three bedrooms, two closets and an attic (no kidding).
It also has about 50 different parts, and we hadn’t set it up recently so it was going to take awhile.

The site was covered with crushed rock (remember those air mattresses I left behind).
We spread out the tent and staked it down, …and then the skies opened up, it began to rain ….and rain and rain and rain.
...for about an hour; a stream began to flow through the campsite (and through our tent).
Our tent was soaked inside and out but the kids used a towel (my towel) to dry the inside of the tent.

By dinner time we were tired, dirty and hungry. We planned on eating out. We had scoped out the sporadic area restaurants as we were driving in and my wife picked a local diner. As we drove in we read the banner out front: “Hottest women dancers - Friday”.
Spur of the moment decision: I decided we’d eat somewhere else!

Monday night and we were hot damp and tired. I took a Tylenol PM before bedding down, (a trick I found helpful to insure a good night’s sleep while camping) and went to bed before my wife and kids.
Those rocks were hard.

I woke up a few times, hearing rustling as the family bedded down and a few other times.
Around three AM my wife awoke and said, “there’s something out there!” I thought it was one of my girls moving around but got the flashlight out and looked around and didn’t see anything. Why would an animal want to get into the tent?
My wife confessed that she put our breakfast bagels and other food in the tents closet before going to bed.

She gathered up the food stuff and took them to the SUV stubbing her big toe badly in the process. After a little first aid everybody was awake, it was 3:30 AM.
I decided as it was almost time to get up anyway, I’d read in the van till morning with my flashlight.

I just settled down to read when I heard that same scratching sound, I flashed my light at the tent and saw a skunk.

Of course the shadow of the skunk was highlighted (in a much bigger image on the wall of the tent)… the kids let out a scream (as only girls can scream)
…and the skunk waddled off… but continued to visit us every 20 minutes or so through out the dark early morning hours (I got a few pictures).

Morning left us sore and wet, the humidity was close to 100% in the tent and in the campsite. Under my sleeping bag was a puddle.

We aired out the tent as best we could and spent the day at Bushkill Falls, the Niagara Falls of Pennsylvania (how ever thought up that slogan had a great sense of hyperbole). We had a good time, some great pictures, but it was hot (99 degrees in the shade by our vans gauge).

We arrived back at the tent just in time, it rained for another hour, this time we got to watch other people setting up in the rain.

We dried out again, ate dinner and settled down to bed. I told my family I’d be waking up early and try to get better pictures of our furry friend.
During the night we heard the new campers yelling and hooting occasionally during the night.
The skunk found better stomping grounds.





We packed up Wednesday morning and left for a three hour drive across the state to Knoebles.

Two hours into the drive I noticed some lights on the dashboard. Our electrical system needed checking. We shut the air conditioning down (in record high heat) and I told everybody to open their windows. I got mine open, they were a little too late, no power, they wouldn’t open! Things began to get heated.

We called AAA and asked for a dealership nearby; we called them and let them know about our problem.
We drove into the lot and parked (I tried to re-start the car- no power).
Diagnosis; bad alternator, they didn’t have one for our year and would have to get one.

Good news: we drove out less than two hours later with a new alternator. Unbelievable!

Half an hour later, on a 1 ½ lane road we stopped for a flat tire. We were on a steep grade inches away from a very healthy patch of poison ivy.
We had to unpack the whole car to get to the spare.
I’m still itching.

Got home today after some additional troubles.
I’m not sure I’m be able to serve communion on Sunday (you know what I mean?).
I can’t wait to get some rest back at work Monday!

Rob