Don speaks: After finishing at the library, we headed over the river and through the woods to grandmother's house in Emporium, PA. The last time I was there was in the late 50's. It was an intriguing place on a mountainside above the town surrounded by woods. I remember loving to go visit Gram and Gramps Bishop, my mother's folks, because they had a paved driveway where brother Dave and I could ride the scooter and big tricycle they kept in the garage. We also would visit the teenager across the street who used to go on rattlesnake hunts. He had terrific snake skins drying in his garage and gave us our first rattlesnake tenders to eat. (Tastes like chicken - with a bite!) The grandparents had wild blueberry bushes growing at the back of their lot at the edge of the woods. If we were there at the right time of year, we'd go back and eat all we could find. Lots of good memories.
After the first hour on the road, Linda started with the "are we there, yet" bit. Got to admit that it was taking longer than I thought it would. As we passed through the little town of Coutersport, we were just in time to be stopped by the annual Autumn Festival parade. The bad news was that we were held up for 20 minutes. The good news was that we had a great view of the parade, the Coutersport equivalent of being on the stand in front of Macy's for the Thanksgiving parade. We saw the football team on a float, the soccer team on a float, Homecoming court in a series of convertibles, cheerleaders, junior cheerleaders, Girl Scouts, Brownies, fire trucks, tractors, antique cars, and the local American Legion honor guard. It was a cute piece of Americana and we both got a kick out of it.
Once we got restarted, we drove through beautiful wooded mountains until we finally got to Emporium. As I was turning right to go into the town center, I saw a road up ahead to the left that looked familiar. Sure enough, it was Sylvan Heights, the neighborhood where my grandparents lived. Making a quick course correction through a parking lot, we headed up the hill.
There are a lot more houses in Sylvan Heights now than there used to be. There are also more roads than there were on my last visit. Hmmm. Which one to take? Let's go to the left. Taa-daa! There's the old place on the right. Used to be red, but I'm sure it's the place. The shape is the same and the driveway is just as I remembered. And across the street is the rattlesnake teen's house. Gram's back yard doesn't back up to woods any more. There's another house behind. Other than that, it's like I remembered. Linda took a couple of pictures while I remembered all the great cookies we used to eat there.
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| Grandparents' House |
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| Rattlesnake Neighbor's Home |
We headed back down the mountain and drove through the town of Emporium. Can't say that I remember much about the town, but there were a couple of familiar parts. Had to stop for a couple of minutes so I could call brother Dave and play "Guess Where I Am?" It was great to come back to a little bit of the Petersen family history. Lot of nice memories in this small Pennsylvania town.
We headed back to the campground by a different route. Still took us through Coutersport where we stopped for dinner at the Sweden Valley Inn. Saw a few of the Homecoming Court girls with their hair-dos and fancy gowns, with their dates. Found out that they had won their homecoming game the night before and the big dance was tonight. It was a pleasant way to finish our day.
Sunday, October 3rd: Travel to Mount Pocono Campground, PA
Lin speaks: For the first time, we had an easy camp breakdown and were ready to leave by 10:00. We took time to go thank the owners of the campground for a pleasant stay, so we didn't get out until 10:30. The day was beautiful and the 4 hour drive was delightful and stress-free. Due to the summer drought in PA the leaves were at peak, but lacked the typical bright, bright colors. I bought a used book at the library yesterday, Classic Fairy Tales to Read Aloud, and read a few to Don as we drove along to pass the time. Ever read "The Flying Trunk," by Hans Christian Andersen or "Jorinda and Jorindel" by The Brothers Grimm?
What a joy to arrive at this special campground! We selected Mount Pocono Campground because it is owned by the son and daughter of Lee and Barbara Roberts, who used to own and run Belgrade Lakes Camps at the north end of Hoyt's Island on our lake, Great Pond. In 1977 - 79, we vacationed at BL Camps, which started our love affair with Great Pond. We bought our piece of property on Great Pond in the fall of 1980. Lee and Barbara still have a summer house on the North Bay of Great Pond.
Debbie, Lee and Barbara's daughter, welcomed us when we pulled in at Mount Pocono Campground. She climbed down from the tractor seat, where she was hauling wood in the front-loader bucket. She was just a teenager when we stayed at BL Camps, but she remembered babysitting Donny for a few hours each afternoon, as he was only 3 1/2 months old the first year of our vacation on the island. We also dragged our sailboat, a cherry red O'Day Javelin, over to the camp each year, so I thought that might be a memory for Debbie to place us. She claimed to remember us (or maybe she is just a sweet campground owner).
Facility-wise, this is the best campground we have stayed at so far. There are 191 sites and over 100 are seasonal campers. Seasonal campers are those folks who park their campers here permanently or rent their site for the whole summer. With this high number of seasonal campers, this is a well-established neighborhood, with Deb & Scott (her brother) as the "mayors" of their own town. The campground ownership/mayor analogy is Don's idea. Deb & Scott are responsible for all the campground facilities - road, water, electric, cable, WiFi, garbage, swimming pool, dog run, laundry, rec room, camp rules, etc. Our pull-through trailer site is neatly appointed with a gravel pad, little plot of grass, a split-rail fence with landscaped bushes. Everything in the campground is immaculately maintained, so we know Debbie and Scott work very hard to keep their campground perfect. Deb told us they have owned the place for nine years and it was a dump when they bought it. Lee and Barbara must be very proud of their industrious kids!
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| Don at Campsite |
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| Halloween display at campground outside the bath house. I can see little kids too scared to go pee. |
Monday, October 4th: And the Rain Started!
So much for our sunny days hanging around the campground. The rain started during the night and continued steadily all day. We had decided we needed our first lay-around-the-campground day, which wasn't quite what I had planned it to be because of the rain. The trailer was warm, but it didn't get much out of the 40's today. Eventually we had a moisture problem inside the trailer, similar to when you sit in a car on a rainy day and all the windows get steamed up. Wiping window sills helped, as well as turning on fans, but then it got chilly.
We played on our computers, read some, took a 45 minute walk in the rain, and I dragged out a new jigsaw puzzle, "100 Alligators and a Purse." While doing the puzzle, I cooked a hubbard squash in the microwave. Don kept threatening to throw out the squash, as he was tired of trying to find a place to store it every time we hit the road. The window of the new microwave steamed up between the glass, so here's another fix we'll need to deal with at some point.
I played with the puzzle for hours and loved that I had nothing I had to do except focus on the puzzle. Don eventually came and helped sort the pieces by color. Now the downside to doing a 750 piece puzzle in a small trailer is that you can't complete it in one day and room is a major issue. The border of the puzzle just fits on the little table, so we have bowls of different color pieces and can really only have one color on the table at a time. We then had to move the puzzle to the end of the table to have dinner. I need to come up with a storage idea for the uncompleted puzzle for when we leave on Wednesday.
Dinner was great - pork chops with Muffy's sliced onions and hubbard squash. The squash was outstanding! Then we settled back and watched the History Channel's "Pickers" and "Pawn Stars" for the whole evening. If you haven't seen these shows and have cable, they are really great. And the rain continued to fall.......
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