Camping Weekend

This weekend we went camping at the Lake Luzerne NYS campsite. As always we had a lot of fun and we even had some extra entertainment this time around! We went up Friday night when I was done with work. Its much better to go then because we end up with a full day at the campsite on saturday. Checkout time is 11:00 which means the day you check out is pretty much breakfast and packing. We set up camp and settled down to dinner and a fire when the people across the way came pulling in with multiple vehicles and an RV. In the morning the same people were up and putting together a wooden picket fence! I am still not really sure why they needed a fence but it made for interesting entertainment while we ate breakfast.

After breakfast we headed out to the creek that runs by the road to the campsite. Maddie was anxious to try out her tiddler net! Unfortunately there seems to be a large contingent of resident Canada geese making the water slimy in feel and leaving quite a lot of evidence (some fun like feathers, some not so fun, use your imagination!). So we moved on to tree identification for Maddie's forestry book entry for the Altamont Fair.

We also tried swimming in the lake but it had the same feel as the creek so we quickly gave that up! Instead we went back to tree identification and photos! Also some reading, knitting and drawing. 

Photos by Maddie

Then we moved on to making dinner. Brian had put some chicken on skewers to marinate at home and made some foil packets of potatoes and broccoli. It was yummy, one of our better camping dinners and hit the spot after all the exploring!

While Brian made dinner Maddie did some exploring up the hill a bit behind our campsite. She was so excited to recognize indian cucumber. She learned about this from Camp Fowler. You can eat the root and it certainly does smell and taste exactly like a cucumber! Ranger Maddie was on the job.

Indian Cucumber

After dinner Maddie and I took a ride up to the Ranger station to turn in her junior naturalist book. I think the workers quickly get a feel of which kids are into and which are not. The rangers at this campsite always offer Maddie patches from other years after talking to her for a while. There was only one patch they offered that Maddie didn't have and it had a tree on it! She was so excited and explained that forestry is one of her 4H projects. Excellent-take it! was the quick answer. 

A good time was had by everyone! Some rest was tucked in there too for Daddy and Momma. On to the next adventure....the Altamont Fair!