After a wonderful month at Benner's Campground, we had one more day to enjoy our mini adventure. We made one final trip into Ohiopyle where we bought our t-shirts and hoodies to commemorate the trip. We got one last scoop of sticky bun ice cream from Falls Market and we took one more trip down the natural water slides. Some thunderstorms passed through the area so the water was at a perfect level. It was truly a wonderful day.
We spent our evening back at the campground. The kids and Dave played a pick-up game of basketball and we enjoyed one last campfire. We will truly miss this place. The kids made friends and had the freedom to explore the campground without much worry. We are excited to head to Florida, but we will miss our summer home in PA.
I sit here writing under the cover of our wonderful awning as rain finally falls in Fayette County, PA. The Youghiogheny River was showing only 1.28 on the gauge last evening. Dam releases have been restricted to Saturdays only so the outfitters are taking a hit this summer. Dave was hoping to run the Upper Yough again today, but with no water released it was a no go. So, the kids are watching movies and playing their iPods, I am blogging and reading on my new Kindle, and Dave is working and hoping to at least get down the Lower Yough later today.
Yesterday was fun and educational! We visited Fort Necessity again and we went on the tour. Our guide was very informative so we actually learned a lot! Growing up in York County, I learned a lot about the Revolutionary and Civil Wars. I never had a good understanding about the French and Indian War though, so this outing was a learning lesson for us all.
The battle that took place at Fort Necessity was the first for 22 year old George Washington. He learned a lot in this battle especially because he lost. It was interesting to see the precursor to the American Revolution and the foundation that was laid for our country. The kids were also excited because they logged several hours of history time for school!
In the evening, I got to do a 7 mile bike ride on the heritage trail along the river. The kids and Dave jumped off the 12 foot rock they've come to love, into the chilly river water. I love to watch!
It's hard to believe the time here has passed so quickly. We come back to York next Wednesday to pick up a few things, set up for the Jeep show, and visit our families. In just two short weeks we'll be on the road toward Florida again; adding new stops to our journey and more adventures to share with you all.
Hey, it's Grace. Yesterday was a pretty awesome day. If you read our last blog then you know we took a trip to Laurel Caverns. We originally planned to take a harder tour, but weren't able to. So my dad and I decided to take a daddy/daughter trip for the lower caving tour. We had 2 chances to do this. We could go at 10 o'clock or 2 o'clock. I woke up at 9:40am though, making the 10'clock tour fairly impossible. Sorry, I like to sleep.
So to pass the time, I went fishing with my brother. We only caught a bluegill, but it was fun. When we came home I did what I do best; I read a book. Finally we were ready to go. We had to wear jeans and old clothes because the lower caving was supposed to be pretty dirty. I also brought a jacket because the caves are always 52 degrees. When we got there, we had to go into a room with the rest of the tour. There were about 15 people in our group. Our tour guide was about 18 and we were only his 2nd tour. We donned our hard hats and our headlamps and were ready to go. I was so excited!
The first part of the tour you follow the family tour path, but then you exit to a dark room. If we didn't have our lights along we wouldn't have been able to see our hands in front of our faces.
The tour wasn't a huge sightseeing attraction, but it was a fun hike. It was cool because everybody was helping everybody. There was one girl who was the tour guides younger sister, and another boy who was the tour guides cousin who I pretty much followed the whole way; more on that later.
I don't know if I have this in the right order, but I do remember some specific places among the tour. The water was called the fish because the rock was shaped like a fish. Supposedly you should go over the fishes tail because it was good luck, but that way was harder so my dad just went with the bad luck and went across the head.There was also another part called the chimney climb. There you had to sort of press your butt against the one wall and your feet against the other; unless you were a twelve year old girl! I was able to just monkey my way up instead. There was also this area where the tour guide had us turn off all our lights and walked up in the pure dark. It was pretty cool, but we had to sneak a look at one place because I kept running into this wall. We soon realized there was a turn. Blonde moment!
It was also cool to see all the graffiti which was just peoples names and the date. I found it hard to imagine how the people wrote some stuff on the roof. Today, you are not allowed to write in the cave. The tour was even more fun because the guys I followed picked all the hardest lines. We also followed a stream the whole way. It was also interesting that even though the cave was 52 degrees everybody was sweating. It was so much fun!. I love climbing and ducking under rocks! It was great! I bet I could be a tour guide there too, if I had any sense of direction.
When we got out of the cave at 5 o'clock we were exhausted. We came home and got dinner. Mom made tacos. We then went to Fort Necessity, but it was closed. We drove through the area and my mom read about the battle from a website. It was during the French and Indian War which was before the Revolutionary War. George Washington lead the battle for the British and he was only 21 or so.
Afterwards we went for ice cream and it was amazing! This place served soft ice cream, but it was funky flavored. For instance I got maple nut flavored and it was so good. The ice cream was so light and airy. The day was amazing and I had so much fun.
Hey, it's Grace again. So for the 4th of July we decided to go to Laurel Caverns. I was really excited because I had done a school report on Laurel Caverns and I wanted to actually see it. Before we even got into the cave I was amazed. The view from the parking lot was amazing. You could see for miles and miles.
hall of kings
When we got to the building to buy our tickets we planned on doing one of the harder tours, but it turned out Camden and Lauryl weren't old enough. Instead we decided to take the family tour which was an hour instead of three. The first thing we noticed entering the cave was the temperature dropped. The cave is always 52 degrees no matter what the weather is outside. The first room the tour guide took us to was called the hall of the kings. The tour guide pointed to the ceiling and showed us what looked like an alligator on the roof of the cave. He told us how other explorers used symbols like this to find their way through the caves.
MINI GOLF CAVER
Another place in the cave had lights that were activated by sound. So while everybody else was going through making a lot of noise to keep the lights on, my dad and I stayed back and went through in the dark. It was great! We also went up this really steep hill. Halfway up the hill the tour guide stopped. There was a railing and the upper end was shorter then the lower end making it slanted. The tour guide rolled a golf ball along the railing but instead of going down the one end it rolled up the railing. The tour guide explained that it was an optical illusion because there are no reference points in a cave. When we finished the tour we decided to do the caverns mini golf. It was pretty lame, but we all had fun.
When we got home we swam for most of the day. My mom had bought Lauryl and I glow sticks and Camden a glow gun to celebrate the 4th. We were going to go watch the fireworks in Nemicolin, a nearby resort, but we would have had to sit in our cars along the road to watch them. Instead, we decided to watch them from the pool since it was a late night swim.
Camden decided to play basketball with some older kids and I joined in. I tripped over my feet and skinned my knee, but my team won. After the basketball game, we went swimming. Lauryl's glow stick broke and squirted her in the eye. After flushing it with some water she was fine! We swam for the rest of the night and watched fireworks over the trees. It was the best fourth of July ever!
Hey yaallll, it's Grace. Today was Monday which means three things. Today's meatless Monday. You see my mom read Bob Harper's book "The Skinny Rules" and the whole family is trying to get healthy. One of the rules is to make one day a week meatless so we decided to make it Mondays. As hard and UN-fun as it may sound to anyone reading this, I'm actually enjoying it. I feel a ton better just on my health level, we're all a bunch more active, and we're trying a lot of new foods. For instance, just a couple weeks ago my mom made this vegan non-meat protein for our tacos. I thought it tasted way better and it was a lot more filling. Instead of eating 2 tacos and still being hungry I had 1 taco and was full. Today, we tried vegan hotdogs which were not so good. I'd take a regular hamburger any day. Sorry, not a big hot dog fan. We also tried meatless chili which was even better then regular chili and it had a lot of beans in it. Also, instead of using sour cream we used plain yogurt and if my mom hadn't told me I wouldn't have known the difference. Of course nobody's perfect; one of Bob's rules is to give up all sugar, but today we made cookies with half a stick of shortening in it. We do try to follow most of the rules though, and we keep adding new ones as we get better with the other ones.
Next, today is also Music Monday. Every Monday I'm suppose to give my sister a piano lesson starting today. My mom's paying me seven bucks to do it! I'm hoping to get some experience so I can teach other kids too. If these things are sung to the tune of "Manic Monday", meatless music Monday is truly unforgettable!
Today, my dad went grocery shopping so the rest of us could stay home. How nice! My mom took Camden, Lauryl, and me to the pool. I played with my friends, swimming and carrying on and later I got out to play tether ball. You should note this is not your normal nice game of tether ball. The ball is as hard as a soccer ball and its going about a hundred miles an hour. You were lucky if you escaped alive!
When we came home we helped put away the groceries. I then proceeded to do what I do best; I sank into another world only found in my book. The funny thing now is that because we're home-schooled (yes we are homeschooling now and yes it is different from cyber school), we can start recording school today. That means all the educational stuff we do for fun counts! So, I got 2 hours of reading, an hour of gym for swimming at the pool, and several other educational/fun things including time for writing this blog.
In the evening we headed for the Yough River. We dropped my mom off at the trail because she wanted to run. See, we're working hard on the exercise part of our health too so she met up with us later. We brought our kayaks and carried them down from the parking lot, and yes I do mean WE not just my dad, then we got in the water. It was absolutely freezing! The bank dropped off really deep before you even had time to get used to the temperature and it smelled like dead fish! At this point in time you should note the title of my blog since it took us some time to get use to the smell. We then swam over to the other side of the river, and jumped off a 10 foot rock into the water. I must say that it was quite a rush!
When we came back my mom gave us a brief science lesson on the things around us like the trees and waterfalls. Next we started kayaking. I worked on my roll a little, but I couldn't get it down before I got too cold. I must say though, the last two attempts I swallowed about sixty gallons of Yough water..yuk. Afterwards, Camden got in the boat and worked on his roll too. He did it the first time, but struggled some after because he was thinking too much.
We we got home we had some of that chili I was talking about earlier and we sat around the campfire. Mom encouraged me to write today's blog for school time so that's about where I am right now; sitting at a fire, writing the blog for school, and saying goodnight for now.
Power returned to the campground late last evening which meant we had running water again! The campground's well was on an electric pump so not only did we not have power yesterday, our only water was bottled and warm. Once power returned, we were able to take warm showers, wash dishes, and charge our phones and computers. It was a nice treat since we didn't expect to see power again that quickly.
Today was relaxing and fun. Our neighbors next to us left which meant the girls were without their new friends. I thought it would lead to boredom, but they managed to find fun in the midst of their lose. They watched a movie for part of the morning. We don't get any television channels so movies and "I Love Lucy" episodes keep us going when we need a visual fix. We went to the pool for a few hours where they had a few other friends. When we came back to the camper, Cam played video games and the girls and I learned 500 rummy. I really enjoy playing cards with the kids. It reminds me of days with my mam and pap Good where card playing was a daily ritual. We even used a deck of my pappy's cards so it sort of felt like he was right there with us.
Dave spent the day on the Savage kayaking. It sounded like he had a great time and the creek boat he picked up seemed to work great for him. I'm glad, 'cause now he's gearing up to run the Upper Yough and I want him in a boat he likes.
It's amazing how much free time we really have when you take away all the "plugged-in" distractions we partake of every day. I haven't missed the tv much other than keeping up with the news. I do have internet so I'm not completely oblivious to the outside world. We've just discovered other ways to enjoy our time together and I am truly grateful for that.
We spent our evening back at the campground. The kids and Dave played a pick-up game of basketball and we enjoyed one last campfire. We will truly miss this place. The kids made friends and had the freedom to explore the campground without much worry. We are excited to head to Florida, but we will miss our summer home in PA.
