RE: Raystown/Rehoboth trip - a story of our " excitement" (LONG!)

[campingboaters]

 
Raystown Lake, PA ? Sunday, August 24th ? Thursday, August 28, 2003
 Rehoboth Beach, DE ? Thursday, August 28 ? Monday, September 1, 2003
 
 After arriving at Raystown Lake and spending some time boating/swimming, we set up camp and started dinner.  It was around 7 and I guess I wanted a little more excitement in my vacation, so I accidentally gashed my palm with a VERY pointy knife while trying to separate frozen burgers.  When I saw the INSIDE of my hand, I KNEW I needed stitches!  No lectures please.  I was cursing myself left and right -- I should know better.  Anyway, DH and I were escorted for the 20 minute ride back to town and to the hospital by a local sheriff who happened to be in the park when we were looking for directions.  The nurses and doctor at the JC Blair Memorial Hospital in Huntingdon, PA were very nice and it was only three and a half hours (and two stitches) from the time I stabbed myself to the time I returned to the campsite exhausted and ready for bed. We never did eat dinner that night.
 
 Monday, at 2 AM, our friends came knocking on our door wanting to sleep in the camper due to the oncoming thunderstorm.  We offered the camper in case it got too hot.  We didn?t expect them to come knocking in the middle of the night for a thunderstorm.  The storms rolled in and out for several hours and no one got a lot of sleep that night as their infant didn?t want to sleep and my 5 YO was afraid of the storm.
 
 Tuesday morning was still rainy, so the men went off in search of a fax machine.  They really just wanted to get away from campand the bugs -- which were HORRIBLE this year.  My girlfriend and I stayed at the camp with the infants.  It started to clear, so we went for a nice walk, came back and went swimming for a bit.  We noticed the dark clouds rolling in again so we closed everything up and made sure everything was covered from the coming rain.  As we were finishing what we thought we had to put away, the men screeched to a halt in the campsite and jump out to tell us of the incoming storm -- as if we couldn t figure out it was goign to rain again.  ?No" , they said. " It?s going to be a BAD storm with 60 mph winds!?  OK, we threw everything in the trucks or the camper and tied everything else down.  After about 5-10 minutes of scrambling, we all got into the camper as it started to pour buckets.  OK, I have to say, I was already in the camper with all the kids and dog since I was kinda useless putting things away because of my hand.  Anyway, when they said 60 mph winds, they were NOT kidding and the buckets of rain were tremendous.  One of our pop-up gizmo bunk end covers ripped right off with all the clips still attached to it, but it didn?t go far because it filled with a ton of water and stayed put by our picnic table.  The second bunk end cover (on the lakeside of our camper) started pulling away, but there was NO WAY we were going outside in that storm to save a cover that could easily be replaced.  We watched it flap while we kept an eye on the boat tied to shore and anchored in the lake.  The boat was getting farther from our campsite.  When the boat gave a sudden jerking movement away from the shore, we thought it broke free from the cinder block we had tied the bow of the boat and we didn t know if the anchor was still holding.  Our friend (the boat?s owner) went out into the storm to save his boat.  Turns out the cinder block was just getting dragged out into the lake by the boat and he had to be a ?he-man? to pull the boat and block back into shore enough that he could tie the boat to a SMALL tree.  We hoped that would hold long enough for the storm to pass.  Our friend was even nice enough to save the neighbors floats from blowing away!  It was all certainly a sight to see!
 
 We sat out the rest of the storm in the camper which sprung leaks where the top of the bunk end canvas met the hard side of the camper.  We?ve had rain before and since and it never leaked except during that storm.  We?ve been through storms at the lake before, but NOTHING like this one!
 
 After making it through that storm, our friends slept in our camper again.  Wednesday was cloudy/rainy again. We KNEW there was NO WAY all of us were going to sit in the camper all day so we decided to drive to Penn?s Cave to do the boat tour of the cave.  After surviving the traffic in [Penn] State College (students were moving in), due to the horrible directions we got, we made it to the cave and had a pleasant tour.  It was my first cave tour so I was impressed.  After consulting a map, we went home a different way to avoid the college traffic.  We made it back in time for a nice boat ride and swim before dinner.  We packed up a lot of things that night in hopes of having some time the next day to go out on the boat again before leaving Raystown on Thursday.  We didn?t get our fill of boating/swimming time on this vacation due to the amounts of rain.  
 
 We were lucky on Thursday to get out for a boat ride as it was the nicest day of the week.  At one point, my husband was using my 5 year old?s baseball hat on our infant as I forgot a hat for her.  He let go just in time for the boat to speed up and a gust of wind swept it into the water. Luckily it stayed afloat long enough for us to turn around and get it.  Boy, was my oldest daughter mad at her father -- it was her only/favorite hat!  
 
 After our boat ride, we packed it in and headed to Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.  We thought it would be a 7 hour trip, but only took 6.5 hours (due to the GREAT directions from Shebantam) and that included a stop for lunch and another for gas.  It was dark when we got to the campground ? which stressed DH since he had to back the camper in, and our walkie talkies were, of course, dead.  After a little stress and yelling, we got the camper where we wanted it and all was OK again.  He backs the camper up so great, but doesn?t do it comfortably when he can?t see where he s going.  One of our projects this winter will be lights on the camper for such night time arrivals.  We?ve been fortunate so far that we?ve been able to plan all of our trips to get set up before dark.
 
 The Sunday before we came home, we took the ferry from Lewes, DE to Cape May, NJ.  My daughter really wanted to and since the kids were free, it was a rather inexpensive day.  We even took the shuttle into Cape May for lunch before returning on the ferry back to Delaware.  I think that will be one memory we keep for quite some time since I was still suffering from motion sickness TWO days after that!
 
 All in all, it was still a great vacation  -- any bad day of camping beats a good day at work!  I got my stitches out Tuesday morning.  DH will be happy to know that I?m going to try staying away from any sharp knives for a while -- or at least THINK before using them!
 
 See my review of 3 Seasons/ Rehoboth Beach area for information on 3 Seasons RV Park and the Delaware Seashore State Park.  There was already a review of Raystown Lake and the Seven Points Campground.
 
 Here are a few pictures from our trip: [link=http://community.webshots.com/album/88485779argkmC]Raystown/Rehoboth Pictures[/link]

[Foxyladies]

 campingboaters
I have to commend you on your upbeat attitude toward a stressful vacation. I would have been screaming or crying. But I do know, it seems you can handle all kinds of happenings when your on vacation versous just a weekend of camping.
 
 I m glad you enjoy yourselves[]

[jstaddwtr]

 campingboaters
Loved your story!!!!!!
 
 Real troopers!  We originally bought our PU because we got tired of getting smacked with rain storms with a tent.  Sounds like you were prepared and did well!