Lakeside Solitude

Sometimes it is good to be reminded of how great it is to be happily married. Sharon and I celebrated forty-five years a few months ago and our life together has been a joy. Sure, we have ups and downs. Every married couple does. But we stick together through each one and our life together has been a true blessing from God.

He who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord. -Proverbs 18:22

All our married life, we have enjoyed camping together; first the two of us, then with our two kids (and an occasional pet cat or dog), then with a church youth group (mission trips, music festivals, etc.), then back to the two of us again.

As I look back, there has never been a time that I’ve taken a solo camping trip. There have been a few occasions when I have gone without Sharon, but those times have been with a group. All of that changed this fall.

Sharon went with a group of ladies from our church to a women’s conference about four hours away. They were gone Friday morning through Saturday evening. So, I made a reservation at a lakeside state campground an hour from home. After driving to a town near the lake, I stopped at a supermarket to buy some cheese-filled sausages to cook over the campfire, and some buns. It was still an hour before check-in at the campground, so I stopped to walk four miles on a bicycle trail, alongside the lake. It was a beautiful day with an amazing view of God’s creation.

Upon arrival at the campground, it didn’t take more than a few minutes before I missed my travel companion. We have wandered together enough that we have a good routine upon arrival. Sharon sets up the inside while I get things ready outside the van. So, it seemed to take twice as long to set up this time.

That feeling of missing her continued throughout the trip with one exception… Saturday morning.

Sharon and I are very different people when it comes to morning time. My perception of her is that as soon as her feet hit the ground, she goes immediately to work on something. It may be cooking, or sewing, or something else, but she hits the ground running.

I, on the other hand, am more of the quiet contemplative type in the morning. I get up, spend some time with the Lord in my Bible and prayer, then make a fresh cup of Aeropressed coffee. The coffee is a continuation of my morning solitude as I sit and slowly sip while watching a travel video on YouTube (I am currently on a Tokyo kick). My genre of choice is the travel video with no talking. Subtitles are OK, but just the sounds of the surroundings or quiet music is all the background I need. This contributes to my morning calm.

This is not to say that Sharon doesn’t have a personal devotion time. She does. She just has a different time of day when she connects with God. We often go to the Lord together, in prayer, when we take walks. So that is another part of missing her on my solo trip.

On the Saturday morning of my solo trip, my camping routine came into play. I got up slowly and quietly, gathered my gear and went outside to grind and brew some pourover coffee. Then, with Yeti cup in hand, I came back to sit in the rotated passenger seat in the van beside the opened, side sliding door, where I spent some time in the Word and in prayer. Being alone, my quiet time continued as I walked the short distance from my campsite to the boat docks to view the coming sunrise. The temperature was cool, but pleasant. There are actually two docks that go out into the calm morning water. I was on the one further from the sun because there was a lady with her small dog on the other one. This presented the opportunity to compose a nice photograph of the sunrise with she and her dog silhouetted in the foreground.

As I stood there, admiring the beauty of God’s creation, another gentleman joined me on my dock. He said he had to come down to watch the sunrise because he works early and usually misses it. I was very pleased to share the dock to allow him this opportunity.

I took a morning walk around the campground to get started on my step-count, then a bit later walked about three miles to an ice cream shop next to a causeway. I would end the day with over ten miles on my fitness app.

Back at camp, I spent the rest of the day making a campfire and cooking another of those sausage dogs. They were delicious!

As evening came and it started getting cooler outside, I turned to an episode of Miami Vice (Season One) that I had downloaded prior to my trip. Ah yes… pastel-colored t-shirts and suit jackets with a background of great music of the 80’s. I must admit that I adopted a bit of the Sonny Crockett fashion for a short while back in the day.

I slept well on Saturday night and got up early Sunday morning for my coffee and devotions before breaking camp, stopping by the dump station, and traveling an hour toward home in time to arrive at our church for Sunday school and reuniting with my bride at 9:00.

I am thankful to have had this experience. It gave me a great appreciation for my wonderful travel partner and also showed me just how much I enjoy my morning solitude. I am often reminded of the quote by Chief Hopper on the television show, Stranger Things: “Mornings are for coffee and contemplation.” And to that, I close with a hearty AMEN!

-Randy

Blog & photos: ©️TheTravelingKites 2024

November 23, 2024 0

Weekend at Virginia’s Beach, PA

First off, that’s Virginia’s Beach, not Virginia Beach. Virginia’s Beach Campground is on Lake Erie, not the Atlantic Ocean. Our weekend spot was at North Springfield, PA; west of Erie and east of the Ohio state line. Now that we’ve established that…

On Friday evening, September 29, we set out for our next adventure; a Friday through Sunday getaway. The drive took about one hour, twenty minutes (due to the 7,500 pound land yacht that was tailing us) and we were able to watch the sunset during our set-up. It was quite beautiful.

There was a significant amount of wind coming off the lake, so we did not extend our awning. The wind, combined with the cool temperatures, made it feel rather cold.

Sharon made us a delicious spaghetti squash dinner, then we put together a puzzle. I’m not much of a puzzler, but I really enjoyed it this time. I think it was because we were together, away from the busyness of the work week we had just left behind. We had a nice evening and went to bed around 9:30.

On Saturday morning, we had a delicious breakfast of waffles, topped with apple and cranberry pie filling, along with some of Sharon’s warm pumpkin drink. We were discussing what it should be called. I noted that we shouldn’t call it a pumpkin latte, because that would mislead someone like me into thinking it had coffee in it. I also didn’t think we should call it a pumpkin steamer, because that would suggest the inclusion of steamed milk. She said that she has a recipe at home and will look up the actual name of the drink.

After breakfast and showers, we took a nice walk around and outside the campground. There is a neighboring camp called Camp Judson that had a really cool-looking silo with a cross on top. We talked to a man from the camp that just happened to be walking by. He said they call it the tower. If you walk up the bank on either side, there is a doorway around back, half-way up that enters into a prayer room with an altar and Bible.

We took a ride over to Fairview to visit a little cafe that I’ve been noticing when I work in the area: Main Street Cakery Cafe. It was getting on toward lunchtime, so we indulged in some treats. I had a caramel latte and blueberry scone. Sharon had a green tea and blackberry scone. By then, it had warmed up enough that we sat at their outdoor tables.

We noticed that there was an antique store a couple of doors down, so we went to check it out. Main Street Antiques is in an old house and has two floors of treasures from the past. We didn’t see anything we just had to buy (practicing our future minimalism skills), but really enjoyed the reminiscing.

Back at Virginia’s Beach, Binx, the camping cat, was enjoying the sun coming in the window of our slide-out dinette. We had stacked some pillows on the seat to allow him a comfortable place to lay and gaze out.

We took another walk in the late afternoon, which included a trek down a long, straight ever-narrowing road in the woods. Then we walked along the lakefront where we found some nice, flat rocks and I found some more photos just waiting to be captured.

A motorhome from Michigan pulled in beside us on Saturday afternoon. It was towing an old Citroen car on a dolly behind. The car had the shape of a VW Beetle and Sharon mistook it for a “bug.” It was in very good shape. The owners had a cat and dog with them. Binx and the neighbor cat sat in opposing windows, watching each other.

Sharon got out another puzzle Saturday evening, but I just wasn’t into it for a second night in a row. I half-heartedly helped, while processing photos and uploading them to Instagram (@thetravelingkites, should you wish to follow us there). Each photo upload was an event because there was not much of a cell signal. I had to push the button, then set my phone against the window for a minute while the bits flew off through the air.

We enjoy going to church on Sunday morning when we are camping. It’s always interesting, visiting a new church. This time, we did not get out and there were no services offered at the campground. But we did enjoy a morning walk around camp and down the woods trail. We really felt God’s presence in the beauty of His creation.

The Michigan motorhome pulled out in the morning. They must have just used this as a stop for the night while passing through either to or from a car event.

While breaking down our camp, we spent some time talking to our neighbors on the other side who also had a Class A motorhome. They were from the Pittsburgh area and seemed nice. They were going to go to the Erie KOA on their next outing.

Our drive home was good. The sun was shining and Binx was happy. We arrived home around 1:30 after having another great weekend.

We have an appointment for October 21 to take the Hideout to Bradys Bend for winter storage, so this may have been our last camping trip of the 2017 season. We shall see.

October 6, 2017 0

Weekend at Bear Run

Last month, as we booked our mid-September weekend at Bear Run Campground in western Pennsylvania, we had no way of knowing what the weather would be like five weeks later. It can be a bit unpredictable this time of year. As it turned out, we chose the perfect weekend! The weather was stunningly beautiful; sunny days, cool evenings… perfect. It was a windows-open, fresh air-flowing kind of weekend.

We set out after work on Friday, camper in tow, Binx the camping cat in the center front seat, toward our destination near Portersville, PA. We had stayed at Bear Run on Memorial weekend 2016 and really liked what they had to offer. This campground is clean with paved RVsites. The campground is nicely appointed with a beautiful camp store, western town feel and family-friendly atmosphere. The stay was all-the-sweeter as we enjoyed the luxury of paying with a gift certificate that our son’s family gave us for Christmas.

You may remember the challenges of the drive to the campground on our last trip two weeks earlier when Binx made things… let’s just say… interesting. This time out, we placed him inside his screen-sided carrier atop a towel on the front seat between us. He seemed to enjoy the security of his carrier as we drove. He is getting used to camping now. This was his third camping trip and he didn’t even cry when Sharon carried him from the house to the truck.

Our son and his daughter met us shortly after we arrived. We set up camp, then spent some evening time making pizza mountain pies and roasting marshmallows. It was a really nice evening together.

On Saturday, Sharon and I took a morning walk around the campground. This is a large campground that is spread out pretty well. There are seasonal RV sites up over the hill, then a path down past a horse pasture to a road lined with electric and water sites on one side and cabins on the other. Another fork leads down a narrow road that winds through the woods in a large tenting section, including some walk-in-only sites. There are quite a number of cabins available for rent throughout the entire campground. This truly is a beautiful place.

Sharon made a special lunch of zucchini that was spiral cut with alfredo sauce. It was delicious. We took some afternoon time just to sit outside and enjoy the fresh air. We did some reading and some talking and took an afternoon off. It felt great to not have anything to do.

We had an ice cream cone for pre-dinner (you can make up meals when camping… it’s OK) from the camp store, then took a one-mile round-trip walk to Lake Arthur. I was able to capture some nice photographs along the scenic dirt road.

We got back, just in time to hop on a wagon behind a tractor for a wagon ride to the lake, along the same road we had just walked. The man who introduced the ride and explained the safety precautions was quite humorous and everyone enjoyed the ride.

We arrived back at the campground just in time for the evening activities; a mountain pie contest and bluegrass music concert. We only visited there for a few minutes before returning to our campsite for a campfire.

On Sunday morning, our son’s whole family came over for a visit. We had another campfire and enjoyed watching our granddaughter sifting for gemstones across from the store.

We are in need of replacing our washing machine at home, so we took advantage of the campground’s coin-operated laundry to clean our clothes before departing.

We packed things up after lunch and headed for home. This was another great time to enjoy the beauty of God’s creation.

The weekend was topped off at home by our getting together with friends at a local ice cream shop. It doesn’t get much better than that.

September 21, 2017 0