Camping at Caledonia

Went camping at Caledonia State Park near Gettysburg in Pennsylvania this weekend. Mike, Matthew and I left about 1:00 PM in his van. We took 83 up to York and then west on 30. It was pouring when we left and it poured all the way up there. It was a miserable ride (about two hours). It was still raining when we got there. Ken was already there, in his nice, dry pop-up. We decided not to set up the tent but to sleep in the van that night. We did set up the screen tent. A few years ago, I cut big pieces of plastic to close in most of the sides. This time I used those big metal clips you use with papers instead of clothes pins and they worked a lot better. We did manage to start a fire. Good thing Mike brought dry firewood from his garage. For dinner, we had crab cakes that Mom made. Bob and Bunny came up late that afternoon. They decided not to set up their tent too but to sleep in Ken's pop-up instead. Matthew slept all the way in the back of the van, Mike slept on the bed and I slept behind the front seats. It rained hard all night and the little windows at the top of the van leaked all over me. I ended up sleeping sitting up in the front seat. I actually slept pretty good. In fact, Bob woke us up around 10:00 AM because they thought we were dead or something.

Saturday was a nice fall day. We decided to go on a hike. Here's a hint - never let anybody who runs 50-mile marathons pick the path you're going to hike on. After that ordeal, the day was pretty much over. We went back to the campsite and made dinner - New York strip steaks and potatoes cooked on the fire with canned corn on the side. Good stuff. Saturday night we just hung around the fire, drinking beer and making smores until Matthew got hit in the eye with a hot ember. We managed to get a couple of specks of stuff out of his eye but it didn't help. He was miserable. Ken had a first aid kit and we bandaged his eye up and decided to wait till morning to see how it looked. I stayed up and drank a couple more beers after everybody went to bed. There was a full moon out and when the clouds broke up it was like day time. We slept pretty good in our old Montgomery Ward tent on the air mattresses we got from Uncle Ed (Schultz).

Matthew's eye didn't look good in the morning. It was glued shut and crusty with puss. I used Mike's cell phone to call Natalie to let her know she had to take him to the hospital as soon as we got back. We packed up and left right away. It was another nice day. I would have liked to have hung around and done something while but we had to get Matthew some help. On the way back, Mike found out from Jocelyn that a tree limb had fallen on his car back home and dented his roof and broke his rear window. What a vacation.