This past weekend we went on a little camping trip to the Pennsylvania Grand Canyon, located near Wellsboro, PA. The crew was Angela, Gene, Amy, Nancy, and myself. We had a great time of course. The five of us went in my truck. We left Friday afternoon and got back Sunday afternoon. It took us about 3 hours or so to get there. We camped at a campground called Stony Fork Creek Camp. They have a pond, a creek and hot/warm showers! We found a spot well back in the rear of the tent area. The owner called it the "primitive area" I believe. It was nice enough for us, and it only cost $7 per person, per night.

Angela and I just bought ourselves a new tent at target this week. We already had a two (4) person tent, but we were looking for something a little bigger. The new tent is very nice. I think 2 couples could camp in it quite comfortably. Angela and I stayed in our new tent of course, and Gene and Amy slept in theirs. Nancy (Amy's mom) slept in our other tent that we had taken along "just in case." It turned out pretty well, the campground charges by the person, so there was no issue putting 3 tents up on our very luxurious site.

After setting up our tents on Friday evening, we started a nice little campfire. Friday night was pretty uneventful.

Gene made his world famous "mountain pies" over the fire. Friday's evening menu featured pizza mountain pies, consisting of bread, cheese and pizza sauce. I had an unfortunate accident with my mountain pie. I took a bite and boiling hot pizza sauce squirted out onto my lip and chin, leaving me with a nice blister for the rest of the weekend. My lawyer WILL be contacting the Kelton Mountain Pie company regarding my pain and suffering. Things wound down after that, and Angela and I hit the sack fairly early in anticipation of our big bike ride the next day.

Saturday morning Gene got up first and built the fire. I prepared coffee in my $10 Coleman Coffee pot that I got at Target. The coffee turned out pretty good, although we had forgotten sweetener. We put some Hershey's chocolate in our cups, but you couldn't taste much difference. The funny thing was, after we were all pretty much done with our coffee the idea dawned on us that we should have put marshmallows in it. Something to remember for next time. After relaxing by the fire for a bit, there was a lot of book reading going on, we got our stuff together and headed out to the Pennsylvania Grand Canyon.

First, we went to the overlook of the canyon, where the view was great! In the some of the pictures you can see the rail trail that follows the creek at the bottom of the canyon. After checking out the view and buying the obligatory t-shirt, we drove down to the trail.

For our bike ride, we rode about 8 miles or so downstream. The trail looked pretty much level to the naked eye, but we were going downstream, so there had to be some kind of incline. When we turned around you could tell the difference between riding down and riding up. The ride itself wasn't too demanding but it was very nice and the scenery was very peaceful. At one point along the trail on our way back, we took some pictures at a spot where a small stream feeds into the main creek.

After the ride, we drove into Wellsboro, PA. On Friday when we were driving in we had some "Deliverance" feelings, but the town of Wellsboro is a very charming little town. We took some pictures at a statue in a park in the center of town. The next stop was Dunkin Donuts where Gene and Amy got their coffee fix. After that we headed back to the campsite for showers and more relaxation, not necessarily in that order.

Some time Saturday afternoon/evening, we noticed that a few "kids" had set up camp across the road from us and a couple campsites away. Later on that evening more kids showed up. I'm sure that all of us were thinking, "Uh oh, there goes the neighborhood." While there sure were a lot of cars over there and quite a few people, I don't think they got too rowdy, although they were up quite late and talking loudly. The latest I remember hearing them was at about 4 a.m. when I got up to use the restroom. The next morning (Sunday) I got up first, with the intention of getting a decent fire prepared because it was kind of chilly. While I was sitting by the fire, I watched the owner of the campground show up across the road from the kids' campsite. It was all very quiet over there. Everyone that was still there was sleeping peacefully. The owner walked around the campsite, taking stock of the situation. As I watched, he started tearing the poles and stakes up for the tents leaving them all collapsed on the ground, their occupants still in them. That was no doubt a rude awakening, especially considering that most of them had only gone to sleep a couple hours before. I didn't hear everything the guy said, but it sounded like he was giving them 15 minutes to pack their stuff and vacate. He came back in probably what was about 15 minutes, this time with a rather large gentleman in the passenger seat of his truck, presumably to make sure that the young campers were on their way. That was pretty funny to watch and when I told my fellow campers about it later that morning they were all dissappointed that they had missed the show.

After eating some breakfast which consisted mostly of hotdogs, donuts and coffee, we cleaned up, packed up our stuff, and hit the road.

On our way home on Sunday, we stopped at 3 wineries where we tasted some good wine, for the most part, and bought numerous bottles of wine. The trip back was pretty uneventful, and I am sure that everyone was glad to get home. I for one had a great time on the whole trip, but it was a great feeling to sleep in my own bed on Sunday night.