We spent the 4th of July weekend in the Catskills at Beaverkill campground.  It’s not a very nice campground – it’s basically a large field with a marker every 30 feet of so for each site.  No privacy at all, and from a distance with all the tents and campfires I thought it resembled a 3rd world slum.  We arrived late Thursday night to discover that the campground is locked up after 10pm, so while my parents were in the campground, we were locked out.  The ranger told us to camp overnight at the parking lot of a nearby lake, so that’s what we did.

 

○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○

 

Friday morning, we set up the RV at the campsite and then went to the Apple Pond Farm for their “Farming with kids” tour:

Milking a goat:

 

More farm critters:

 

 

 

 

We then went for a ride on the Delaware and Ulster Railroad from Arkville to Roxbury:

 

 

There was a nice visitor center at the train station in Roxbury:

On the way back, it rained, so we went into a closed car.  We had the car to ourselves:

Tickle time!

○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○

Saturday night, we had a little campfire:

○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○

On Sunday, I went fishing early in the morning.  Beaverkill apparently has some of the best fly fishing in the US, so I was excited to fish the creek.  On Friday, we stopped at a fishing shop in Roscoe and bought some dry flies and a type of bobber that can be filled with water.  By filling the bobber with water, the line now has sufficient weight so that the fly (which weighs next to nothing) can be cast with a standard spincasting setup.

Anyway, I got to the creek at about 6:30am, and just as I got there, a pair of bald eagles flew over, which was great.  About half an hour later, I caught a 12” brown trout:

I took M and B back, and M caught a 8 3/4” brown trout:

They were tasty!

Later in the day, we went mountain biking on what I thought was a gravel road, but was in fact at best a jeep trail.  Everyone was a good sport, especially Mom.  Dad was, in retrospect, smart for staying behind.

M found a frog:

 

Here’s the “road”:

 

Here’s the route:

 

When we got to the end of the ride, everyone drove on to Mongaup Pond, while I rode there by way of a snowmobile trail.  It wasn’t all that far, but it definitely taught me that having a mountain bike that’s less than 20 years old would be really nice.

Here’s the trail:

This is clear, right?

Here’s the route:

Elevation map:

Back at camp, the kids went skating:

 

 

The creek behind the campsite:

After lunch, the kids rode their bikes around the campground:

We had out campsite reserved until Monday morning, but we decided to come back Sunday night.  The traffic was pretty awful, but by 10pm, we were home.

Fun fun fun!