Six of us arrived at Promised Land State Park on Friday. Shortly after I arrived, it started to rain. We moved two picnic tables together and set up the tarp. The rain was on and off. Lightning lit up the sky and thunder rumbled.
We camped on sites 118, 120, 121 and 123 of Pickerel Point. These are choice lake sites quite near the point (the tip of the Pickerel Point peninsula). Mike and Bella bought wood, but it was difficult to get a good fire going. I succeeded in cooking some fish on a charcoal fire.
Saturday morning was rainy, but three more campers arrived. Ken brought a kayak, but Saturday was not a good day for boating. The weather began to clear in the afternoon, and five of us hiked along the Bruce Lake Trail to Bruce Lake. The lake is beautiful, but there weren’t as many blueberries as I expected. The total hike was five miles.
One more camper arrived on Saturday night. The skies cleared and we were able (with difficulty) to get a good fire going. After the moon set, the sky was extremely dark and clear; Frank set up his telescope on the beach at Pickerel Point. He showed me the Milky Way, the Andromeda galaxy and a binary star that is part of the Big Dipper.
Clear also means cold, and it got quite chilly on Saturday night. I went to sleep all bundled up.
On Sunday, we finally had some nice weather. We rented a canoe from 10:30 AM to 6 PM ($52) with seven people sharing the cost. We went out in shifts on Promised Land Lake, exploring its various sections. We saw several piles of debris that looked like beavers dens. We also discovered that the most prolific blueberry bushes were directly on the lake near our site.
Several people went swimming at the Pickerel Point beach, and a couple of people took a longer (10-mile) hike to Bruce Lake. Two people who had Monday off reserved a site for Sunday night and stayed on till Monday.
David Levner
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