Catskills Mountains

After being immersed in the busyness of New York City, we needed some downtime to be one with nature again. We headed north in New York State towards the Catskills. On our way, we encountered Orange County Choppers and took a quick tour of the showroom and the shop. There were many cool bikes to see. They were currently working on a build for Bass Pro Shops.

  

 
 
When we arrived at North-South Lake Campground in Catskills Mountains, the office was already closed. We didn't have a site but luckily there were walk-ups available. We took a pic of the list showing what was open and started driving the loops in search of a good site. We settled in on the last lake site and started cooking dinner. We were a little startled by a knock on the camper door. A lady had a check-in slip claiming the site we were on. I wan't very happy to have to move but we ended up finding another site by a creek that was actually better.

 

1st site

This one was completely shaded so it was a good place to set up the Tenstile tree tent and test it out. Jason and SamBob slept in it one night after working out the kinks of set-up. Jason and I took a short hike to a waterfall but had to turn back early due to mosquitos and my upset stomach!

The next day we did a family hike to Kaaterskill Falls. It had rained so there were a lot of slippery areas around the Falls to be concerned about; at least for this mom! Boys take risks that I don't...

 

view from upper falls

lower falls

 

A mom made this sign- I am sure of it!

Visiting the "Big Apple"

There are few to no options for camping in New York. We found a place in Brooklyn called Floyd Bennett field which is an old airfield no longer used. It is part of the National Park Service. The hangars are still there with some old restored planes in them. The campground is actually a runway where you can park your RV .

 

We had to take a bus then the subway to get into town each day. This was a little confusing but we eventually figured it out after a few days.

Our first stop was Times Square. The view was quite different without the sky and trees all around. The buildings masked everything.  We were excited to take it all in... including the pizza!

We had planned to do so many things in this city but everything was so expensive for a family of six. We did make it to the Statue of Liberty via ferry which was an awesome experience even though it was overcast that day.

 

We also got to experience a New York Yankees Baseball game at home thanks to Kevin Brown for the awesome seats on the 3rd baseline. The fans are definitely passionate there in New York. Sad to say, they lost to the Red Sox.

 

 

Back Home & Continuing the blog for our summer trip

 I am currently sitting in the hospital with Jason Jr. for a week of video EEG monitoring for his seizures. This is required in order to consider him for surgery to remove the cavernous angioma discovered last summer.
Since I have so much down time, I figured that I would catch up on the blog for our summer trip that we just completed. Be on the lookout for a new post about our visit to the Big Apple.

 

The City of Brotherly Love

Our next destination was Philadelphia, PA which was a tough city to find a camping spot. We ended up at Campus Park & Ride which was a lot right in the city that actually had water and electric sites with a dump station (sort of) and bath house. This would be our 1st official campground with hookups since we left home.

 

 It was convenient to Penn's Landing by way of shuttle and Septa city bus. Our first night there the boys let loose by "hitting the wall" with tennis balls and lacrosse sticks in the parking lot. We got to talk with a few other campers in our odd camping location. We found out that Comic Con was in town and a vendor staying there offered us some free tickets. Jason Jr and Nathan were excited. The next morning, our other "neighbors" gave us tokens for the bus ride. This was an awesome place so far!

 



 There was a lot of history here to soak up...from our Founding Fathers, signing of the Declaration of Independence to Continental Congress and the Liberty Bell.

After a few site tours, we walked to the convention center to drop off the big boys to explore Comic Con.                                                                       They had some freedom and loved shopping the booths there and people watching. We would meet up with them later in the day. 

 

Jason and I took SamBob and Wesley to explore some more and grab lunch at the Reading Terminal Market. This place was a really cool indoor farmer's market/food court with over 75 vendors. It was chaotic and oh so hard to choose something. Jason had a Philly Cheese-steak, the obvious choice here!
Our time here was short and sweet then off to The Big Apple!

Visiting the Rich Family

I was so excited to stop in York haven, PA to see my childhood best friend Michelle and her family. We got a premium camping spot in their driveway complete with water hookups from their hose. (LOL)

The first night we enjoyed a relaxing campfire around Mark's fancy firepit. We even had smores!



The next day we all drove up to Harrisburg for a ferryboat ride on the Susquehanna River. The boys all got a chance to hang out and get to know each other.

 

Later we grilled out and played cards and board games. Josh had SAT the next day and we kept him up late that night. I hope he got a great score!





We decided to stop at Hershey Park on the way out of town. The chocolate tour was really cool and the smell was fantastic! The ride showed you the process of making chocolate. There was even a free sample at the end. Mark bought us a 5 lb. box of Twizzlers for the road. I am sure they will be gone soon!

 

 

 

It was bittersweet leaving town because I had to say goodbye to Michelle but I knew we had many more adventures ahead...