After a little end-of-the-workweek gathering at Tom & Anita's house with the CPD gang, a great weekend rendezvous up in Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area. I really like NRAs because there is plenty to do, but on Friday we mostly did nothing... a campfire and some hanging out and that was that.
Saturday morning we crawled out of our tents, Anthony made some killer scrambled eggs, and then we gathered up our gear for a canoe trip down the Delaware. From our put-in at Smithfield Beach in Pennsylvania we headed south with the flow. The rain arrived a short time later and pummeled us, to varying degrees, over the next hour until we were soaked quite through. Just when we had nearly reached the breaking point, we were granted a dual reprive: the rain stopped and we rounded a bend and found a great lunch spot on some New Jersey-side rocks. Jenelle assembled pasta salad and we dined on great sandwiches and said salad and grapes and cookies while the sun warmed the day and dried our clothes. Then back into boats for the balance of our 11-mile trip through the flood-ravaged Gap to Portland.
Nick and Bonnie drew dinner and didn't disappoint with glazed grilled chicken, lemon couscous, black bean salad, and some very delectable grilled banana boats. It was a camp meal we won't soon forget, followed by the rigging of a tarp that kept us dry as a second bout of rain blew through. Later in the evening we talked and had wine and more dessert while the fire crackled and burned down to glowing embers that signalled bedtime.
Sunday was a lazy morning with Gram making a gourmet fruit salad and english muffin breakfast sandwiches. We sat around the remnants of the fire and basked in a great morning before we had to clear the site and head for our respective homes. On our way home, Jenelle and I stopped to pick a two-quart Tupperware full of raspberries from the bear-ravaged bushes lining Old Mine Road. Then home to the Lehigh Valley, where we unpacked, took a lazy nap, and headed to Quakertown for a date with Clerks II and Coldstone Creamery.
Monday, July 24, 2006