Wharton State Forest, 8/14-16/2006

As I drove off the sandy "road" onto a site at Bodine Field in Wharton State Forest, the wheels of my car started to spin. Fortunately, I wasn’t stuck. I got out, looked around, and saw Janice. She set up her tent, I ate, and then we drove off in her four-wheel drive vehicle to buy a grill. It hadn’t rained recently and Wharton had declared a Stage 1 fire alert, meaning no ground fires.

At night, we took a short walk down to the Wading River and looked up at thousands of stars and the Milky Way. I saw a shooting star.

Ken came later on Friday night after Janice and I had gone to sleep. He set up quietly, but some other campers on a nearby site stayed up and partied loudly through the middle of the night.

On Saturday, four more campers were scheduled to arrive, but they hadn’t shown up by 11 AM and we left to go kayaking. Janice and I rented from Bel Haven, and Ken (who owns his own kayak) payed for portage. They drove us to Quakerbridge and it took us four hours to paddle to the village of Batsto along the Batsto River. For the last half hour, we paddled against a headwind--we all got a workout.

While we were gone, Athmane, Teresa, Ellen and Sarah arrived. Athmane, Teresa and Ellen went canoeing and kayaking on the Wading River (passing our campsite). There were mishaps: Ellen and Teresa overturned their canoe, and Athmane’s kayak was damaged when it fell from the top of his van while he was driving on a local road. He was able to repair the damage at the campsite.

On Saturday night, we made a small fire in the grill I bought on Friday. It became cloudy and a few drops of rain fell, and then it cleared up. When Teresa and I walked around Bodine Field, we saw several illegal ground fires.

On Sunday morning, we packed up. Ken and Athmane kayaked in the Wading River. I left around 11 AM.

David Levner