More than half the year has gone by and I am just now getting the second camping trip in. Not as far behind as some other years but still have a lot of ground to cover and not much time left do it!
This trip to Dr Edmund Babler Memorial State Park was planned just 1 day before leaving. Why such short notice? How can you pass a perfect July weekend where the temperatures and humidity do not soar above 90 degrees and 90 percent? The answer is you don't! Especially when you were fulling expecting to skip camping in July but somehow missed June due to scheduling conflicts.
Being so last minute, this trip would be as low key as they come. We would bring bicycles, because we don't do that often enough and it's been more of a thing lately, and our chairs to allow us a recovery spot after riding and that's basically it! Sporting the Yakima MegaWarrior rather than the trailer, it would be a truly back to basics trip of bringing just the necessities and very few extras. As has become slightly more typical of me, either in my haste to pack or my somewhat flawed system of packing things, I managed to forget charcoal for starting fires with ease and for making use of the dutch oven that often comes along for the ride without use. This was going to be a bit of a challenge to say the least.
Fortunately, through some means or another, we did manage to get to camp and get everything setup before dark. That doesn't happen often but when it does, you have time to get a fire going as well as a dutch oven peach cobbler cooking while you sort through setting up camp! This is what camping should be about!
The next day, we would get up and get started with some breakfast, we have stoves for that so no need to wait on charcoal to start, and then it was off to a bike ride around the park! There are a lot of paved roads you can ride on, a lot of hills, and a lot of sights you can see that you wouldn't normally get to see (behind closed gates; unless you rent out the structure). I must be out of practice or something because I didn't get a lot of pictures... What I did get to do though was do a lot of intense riding up and down hills as steep as 9°! For not having done this much riding in recent days, I gotta say, I handled every hill better than I thought I would! Back at camp for the afternoon, a much-needed nap after the 7 miles of hills would tell a different story. We can do the hills but we still got to rest and recover afterwards, a skill that comes with age!
Did I say it was a perfect weekend? What I meant was, it's mid-80s (F), reasonable humidity, and only 20% chance of rain. Boy that 20% sure looked an awful lot like 100% at 11:39 PM.. Oh well, 2 out of 3 ain't bad and with the return of the heat, drying off gear at home ought to be easy. Despite the rain, the weekend was a success and it was great to be back in the woods again!
Until next time when I hopefully don't forget anything important and can remember to take more pictures!
Span of 3 days; No fuel economy stats collected on this trip.