Weekend with Ricketts

Hi family,
Brad and I went to Rickett's Glen State Park this weekend for a little camping trip. It was our first camping trip together and Brad's second in his life.

For some reason, I remember going camping with a lot of fondness. There were little kids at the park who road the loop around our side of the camp ground over and over again, and who were all excited to eat cereal at a picnic table outside, or get ice cream at the concession stand. It made me think of our trips to Yosemite when Sarah learned how to ride a bike, and we'd always get to eat Corn Pops or Fruit Loops because Aunt Lynn and Uncle Bear would bring it, and how dad would always take us for ice cream at least once.

So those were the good parts.

The bad parts: When, say, you're trying to cook dinner over a fire and it starts pouring rain, making all of your wood damp, and delaying the start of dinner for a couple hours.

Or, when, say, your landlord tells you why she never goes camping anymore because two times she has been camping a person or persons has been killed while she was sleeping, and because of the slasher stories you wake up in the middle of the night and can't sleep.

Not that it matters anyway, because even though you have a coushy sleeping bad and a Thermarest, you're still sleeping on the ground. On top of rocks.

Still, we had a really, really nice time. We tried kayaking. There was a hiking trail that went by more than 20 waterfalls, it was really beautiful.