My younger daughter is going to college in a few weeks (University of Oregon). Last summer she discovered that she actually liked camping. So we have been trying to get out for a nice overnighter.
A couple of weeks ago I found this place up in New Jersey called Round Valley Lake. They only have wilderness camping (no RVs and you can't drive to the camp sites). So you either have to paddle or backpack to the campsites. Cool! My daughter was very into it.
Earlier in the week a friend of mine suggested we get together on the kayaks before work... so on Tuesday we did a short paddle down the Schuylkill river. It was good to get out on the water again.
Unfortunately rain was in the forecast, but we decided to go for it.
We got there about 4pm after driving in the rain for 2.5 hours. The lake was much larger than I thought it would be based on the map. With the rain and my daughter being fairly inexperienced on the kayak, I felt a wee bit of trepidation overpowered by the excitement of adventure.
We put all our stuff in garbage bags to keep them dry and loaded up our one touring kayak. Rachel paddled the loaded kayak and I took the white water kayak - she got the better deal.
The lake was beautiful and deep dark blue. It was rain/drizzle for the hour+ paddle that it took us to get to the site. We basically had the place to ourselves. Way cool.
We set up the tent and we were smart enough to bring dry wood and newspaper which, through a lot of patience, my boy scout ways, and Rachel's innate firebuiding skills, allowed us to get a really good fire going.
Weenies, soup, s'mores and a lot of nice conversation followed - the rain stopped for a couple of hours and we just enjoyed the fire.
There was no rain the following morning and we had a nice breakfast and a long hike. Great trails for running and biking btw. We did a little fishing, but were not very successful.
We broke camp at mid day and headed back. It was a really nice time.
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