Morrison Trail – Allegheny National Forest PA

danaelizabethx Backpacking , , , ,

I have taken my nephew camping since he was 3 – we started out camping in my sisters backyard.  Then camped in my back yard.  Then he said he wanted to camp in the “deep deep woods” so we spent the night at French Creek State Park.  He LOVED IT!  When we pulled into our camp site a few wild turkeys were walking around near the fire ring – it was so awesome, but they wandered off fairly quickly.  We got the tent set up, made a fire and had a little dinner.  He was fascinated by the bathhouse – I remember he went to EVERY stall and pushed on the door and was shocked that there were toilets in all of them.  I told him to stand outside the stall so I could see his legs while I went to the bathroom – there were a few other people in the bathhouse drying their hair and brushing their teeth and stuff.  I hear my nephew shout “WHO LET THESE SPIDERS IN THIS HOUSE??”  I start cracking up laughing – my sister (his mom) is a bit of a neat freak and also his parents are not outdoorsy at all.  I say “It’s ok, we’re camping so there’s gonna be spiders and bugs!!”  We made some smores – I made the HUGE mistake of letting him eat as many marshmallows as he wanted.  OOPS!  He had a HUGE bellyache and I felt horrible!

Now that he’s 7 I decided to take him into the REAL “deep deep woods” in early July- a backpacking adventure!!  I chose the Morrison trail as there were a few places to camp before you get to the reservoir in case he got too tired to continue and there was supposed to be waterfalls and cool giant boulders along the way.  The Morrison Trail in Allegheny National Forest is supposed to be fairly easy as well so I figured we could handle it!  Of course I decided to bring JoJo along – am I nuts to bring a hyper kid and a hyper dog backpacking??

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Campbell Hill, OH and Hoosier Hill, IN state highpoints

danaelizabethx State High Points

Since it was too hot to go backpacking and I cancelled the trip I was supposed to go on to do the MD section of the AT I was trying to find something else to do – I was 1/2 joking when I said to my dad “wanna go on a road trip to get the OH and IN state highpoints,” but he said sure! WAHOO!  Last minute road trip!!! 🙂

So early Sat am we jumped in the car and headed out west.  When we plugged the coordinates into my GPS it said we would arrive a little after 2:30- this made us very nervous because on summitpost.com it says the OH HIGHPOINT is only open until 3.  We knew we didn’t have much time to spare.  My dad wanted to take the turnpike most of the way but my GPS kept trying to redirect us off the turnpike.  “I’M NOT GOING THAT WAY!!!! What is it @!*•! doing!?!???” I said “idk dad but it’s just gonna try to keep redirecting you- do you want me to put it on mute if you know where ur going?” He shouted “I KNOW WHERE I’M GOING TIL I GET THERE!!” Which I thought was hysterical- after a few more times of listing to my GPS say “recalculating” and a few more curse words from my dad, I checked the settings- somehow it was checked to avoid toll roads- ah HA! Problem solved- and it also reduced our driving time and said we should get to Campbell Hill at 1:45- much better!!!

ROAD TRIP!!

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York County Heritage Rail Trail

danaelizabethx Cycling ,

Kevin and I decided to check out some of the York County Heritage Rail Trail on our bikes today.  I absolutely LOVE rail trails as you can usually cover some pretty decent mileage on flat terrain with amazing views.  The trail is approximately 20 miles long and also connects at the Mason Dixon Line to the Northern Central Railroad Trail (AKA the Torrey C. Brown trail) which is a 20 mile rail trail in Maryland.  I had done a portion of these trails in the beginning of the summer with my Mom, but there were sections that I had seen pictures of online that I wanted to check out – so we grabbed our bikes and headed out!

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Perseid Meteor Shower 2015

danaelizabethx Backpacking

I have been so excited about the Perseid meteor shower as there would be no moon and they sky was supposed to be very clear for the peak days of the shower Wed-Fri.  I decided to take my nephew for a little overnight backpacking trip 8/13-8/14 on a fairly easy section of the AT (as this is only the 2nd time he would be carrying his pack).  We got permission from the Hamburg Borough Office to leave my car overnight at the Hamburg Reservoir and set out on our adventure.

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NJ/ MA/ CT state high points

danaelizabethx State High Points , , , , , , , , , ,

I have to say I just came back from an absolute wonderful weekend road trip with my Dad!

As we were heading to the NJ state high point, somewhere in PA, we happened to see a guy standing on the side of the road wearing a backpack and holding a cardboard sign– all I saw on the sign was a stacked A T written in black sharpie— the famed symbol for the APPALACHIAN TRAIL!  I yelled for my dad to stop!!  “He’s an Appalachian trail hiker!  Should we give him a lift??”  My dad quickly replied “SURE!”  So I hopped out and flagged him over.

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Old Loggers Path

danaelizabethx Backpacking , , ,

Old Loggers Path in Loyalsock State Forest, PA is a backpacking trip I tried YEARS ago and failed miserably.   I had a MAJOR asthma attack going up the very first incline and couldn’t catch my breath.  Of course I forgot my inhaler (which I honestly hate using anyway because I start shaking so bad from it) so we turned around.  I was very disappointed and embarrassed, and couldn’t catch my breath even on the downhill.  We were with two people who hike all the time and are in AMAZING shape- one of whom hiked the entire AT.  We still had a great weekend hanging out at Kevin’s cabin, and doing some other hiking trails, but I still felt bad that we couldn’t do the OLP because of me.

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RI/ NH/ VT/ MA State Highpoints

danaelizabethx State High Points , , , , , , , ,

Kevin and I had a 3 day weekend so we decided to try to knock out a few state highpoints.  I wanted to do the same trip the Summit Chicks did and snag 5 highpoints in 3 days – CT,MA, VT, NH, and RI.  Piece of cake right?  Honestly it was a bit harder than I thought to try to plan everything and where we could stay.  MapQuest is AWESOME and I love that you can put in your route and click a button so it shows you lodging and campsites along your drive.  I planned to do the exact same route the summit chicks did, but Kevin said that he didn’t want to drive his giant truck up Mt Washington on a Saturday when there would be tons of traffic and people to deal with.  I agreed- there is actually some rules about how big and wide your vehicle can be for Mt Washington – Kevin’s was ok- barely, so if you are planning this trip and have a larger vehicle you may want to look into this!  So we ultimately decided to do the loop of highpoints the Summit Chicks did, but in reverse.

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Harney Peak, South Dakota

danaelizabethx State High Points , , , , ,

When our vacation to South Dakota was approaching we would have one of the following conversations with people:

“What are you doing for vacation?”

“We’re going to see Mount Rushmore.”

“Where’s that?”

“South Dakota.”

OR

“Where are you going for vacation?”

“South Dakota”

“What is out there?” in a totally confused tone of voice

“Mount Rushmore”

“OH! I never knew that’s where that was!”

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