North Lake 6/16 weekend

[copcarguy]

Hey all!
 
We're heading up to North Lake this weekend if anyone wants to come up for a campfire or something.  We'll be on site 45 in Loop 3 for something different.

[tlhdoc]

Why don't you come join HersheyGirl and I at Assateague Island.

[copcarguy]

Hey Tracy - funny you should mention that!  My parents are really looking forward to the DE trip and my Mom and I were going through both my and yours webshots pics Sat.  She was totally intrigued with the wild horses, and I can see them taking a trip there.  I told her that you were the expert in that area and we'd ask you in DE for more info...

[tlhdoc]

I am always glad to spread the word on Assateague.

[SheBantam]

Rick, if your mom and dad are not into rustic...no running water and no electric and no hot showers, there is the MD. SP, which is $$ (I think around $40.00/night if I remember right) go straight instead of turning right for the NP, and Frontier Town not too far from Assateague (actually on the way in to the park). FT comes highly recommended by a gal with grown (older teens) children.her and her hubby take their monster 30' TT down there quite often for a weekend of mommy and daddy time), have never been there, but looks fun.

[tlhdoc]

Rick, if your mom and dad are not into rustic...no running water

Paula there is running water at Assateague.  No hookups, but there is running water.  You don't have to pump the water to fill your holding tanks.

[SheBantam]

Tracy to me running water is where I can hook a hose up to the camper and leave it there, not worry about the tanks going dry...

For that Matter, Cape Henlpoen has running water in the tent section, you ahve to run to the sigot and fill your bucket and run back...the more Civilized/paralel parking sites have water you can hook up to at each site, so the water runs to the camper and not the camper running to the water...oh my gosh, I'm on a roll today...watch out!

[tlhdoc]

the more Civilized/parallel parking sites have water you can hook up to at each site

I don't think that parallel parking is civilized.  One drunk can take out a whole row of campers, on one drive by.

[tlhdoc]

How was your trip?

[copcarguy]

The trip was...... interesting.
 
On the way up at exit 19 (Campers Barn) there was a teeny orange sign right smack dab at the exit ramp that said 23A between Palenville and Haines Falls at exit 20 was closed. I did a last second jump for the exit. We ended up taking the "long way" up, it was okay, we were in no rush and really enjoyed the scenery. It made me realize how much I want to move up there and I was thankful that I own a little piece of earth there. lol. We got there, set up, and it was a super beautiful day. We hung out at the campsite, and I did some fixing and mods. I fixed our door spring, the front ceiling light, and did the table mod - pics are on my webshots in the North Lake section. The place was pretty empty. We went to Selenas and got take out and brought it back to the camper. At that point it was about 7pm, and you could see the mad dash of literally every site being occupied. It got loud. No one really cared about quiet time at 10pm. The Rangers were out patroling. It got quiet about midnight.
 
Then the rain came at 1am. What a storm! It was raining so hard I was sure that we would get a leak. It rained and rained and rained until noon, and then the sun came out super bright - like someone flipped a switch. About 1pm the partying started again and the rangers came around and were really good about telling people to quiet down and making them quiet down. They even had a ranger on foot patrol - which I have never seen before. It seemed to not be a camping crowd so much as a "college / fill up the coolers with beer and get drunk in the mountains" crowd. Most of them left dinner time Sat. I made a nice fire and we cooked on it. We went for a loooong walk all around the entire park.
 
Sunday we got up about 9, cleaned the mud off everything from the previous nights rain, popped down and headed home. We left about noon and took the "long way" back home since we had no other choice. We stopped at the new Stewarts in Haines Falls and I filled up (.33 cents a gallon cheaper than around here!), we got some snacks, and the girl working there gave us both a free ice cream cone. We got to about 1/2 way between exits 18 and 17 and traffic was at a dead stop. There was an accident at exit 16 and traffic was backed up for 18 miles. We trudged our way to the exit and made it home at 3:45pm. Yes almost FOUR hours to get home. I wasn't really freaking about it at all. We were enjoying the scenery, and to be 100% honest, I'd rather be sitting in the van's a/c in traffic than be at work - I was determined to enjoy my extra day off. We had food and stuff to drink and listened to a few CD's. It was relaxing rather than stressful.
 
All in all, it was a nice 3 day weekend...