Raystown Lake

August 7th-9th

Took the beach house to Raystown Lake for the weekend. Got there friday night without any reall difficulties, except me having heart attacks at the curvy roads. Saturday morning we got up and hiked over to another section of the park to get a geo-cache there. It was quite a walk and on the way back we walked through the marina and gawked at the boats.

Daren and Wanda came up Saturday afternoon and stayed the night, which was way cool. They brought some really good corn with them and we roasted it on the fire. It was excellent.

Sunday we drove over to another park named Trough Creek. There were two earth caches there that we went to get. The first is approriately named Balanced Rock.

First there was a suspension bridge that you had to go over.

Over a small (solid) bridge over Rainbow Falls.

It doesn't actually show up too well here, but it is a falls. Then we had to hike up the side of the mountain. The Army corps of engineers or somebody has actually place rock to resemble stairs. Resemble being the key word there. Of course, they were wet on top of everything else. But we got to the top and it was a big ole giant rock that is hanging on its edge over a creek down below. Probably been there for thousands of years, and will be there thousands more, just hanging on.

Yeah, we're goofy

Oh, did I mention the signs they had posted there? "Snakes live here. Watch out for the Snakes" Hey, last thing on my mind if I see a snake is hassling it!

We went to another section of the park and they have something the call the Ice Mine. It seems when they were mining ore out of the mountains here this was probably used as a test mine. Due to the air that goes in and out of the mine, ice would form and stay there until the very late summer.

Daren and Butch down the mine.

Of course, it was quite chilly down there and when we came up, everything glass fogged up.

Some things are just hereditary. With the Hoover boys, its the ability to look at something for an extrodinary length of time, disect it, analyze it, and finally come to the same conclusion that everyone else came to half an hour before.

Here, Butch is obviously explaining how the dam was built.

After studying the map, they both come to the conclusion, that we're right here.

(this picture was taken when they actually had the map facing up, and not turned sideways)

It was so blasted humid that when we got back to the campground we grilled some meat and got packed up and headed home.

4th of July

For the holiday weekend, we took a road trip down to Endless Caverns. We left Thursday night, and were worried (okay, I was) about the traffic down 81 in the motor home. We we lucky. The traffic was not bad at all and we stopped at Winchester Camping World and got a bike rack. Yes, you can roll your eyes now. We got to the camp ground around 7pm and they had us pre-registered (gave me a heart attack before we even left the house, thinking they didn't have our reservation). It's a nice campground, but the spaces are too narrow. Since it is all terraced, it's on the side of a mountain, you only have so much room. Our space was as wide as the awning on the motor home. That was it. The fire ring was in front of the motor home, instead of to the side, where we could have been under the awning. They are doing a huge amount of expansion, going from 66 spaces to like 350. They had just finished the pool and opened it a week or two before we were there. There is a big rec building, and they have plans for water slides. For the price of the campsite, they should have at least that. How about a little more elbow room. If we go back we'd definitely request a pull thru site, as they were quite a bit larger (and that much more expensive).

Since we were on the side of the mountain, the bikes did not get used. Hell, it was hard enough walking it.

We went to the caverns on Friday morning and hit a good tour. There were only 7 of us. The next tour......21 people.

The last picture, Butch is looking into a crock that has been there for like a hundred years. There is a water drip that averages 4 gallons a day and drips into this crock. Many years ago, they'd have party's down in the caves, and they used this instead of carrying water down. The middle picture, is actually a large room that they used for dances and parties. I really can't imagine being down here with only candles.

Saturday night, we went up to the lodge and watch they fireworks from New Market from the meadow there. Cool view of the entire valley, and we were practically eye level with the fireworks, since we were up on the side of the mountain. Many of the backyard fireworks were actually below us. It was a real nice display.