Camping Trip to Ricketts Glen State Park

I don't go camping very often, but whenever I do, it is with my dad and very interesting. This time, we went to Ricketts Glen State Park in Benton, PA for 2 nights. The first night, as usual, we forgot something that in this case was a grill for the top of the fire pit, and pads for the sleeping bags for my cousins that forgot to charge their air pump for their air mattress. Pretty lousy set-up for an air mattress if you ask me. Anyway, we made a quick stop at the Red Rock Country Store about 5 minutes down the road from the state park, making it perfect for this occasion. The rest of the night we spent cooking chicken, beef, and pork spedies on the fire pit which took much longer than we thought, forcing us to eat late at 9 pm. While calmly eating dinner, my uncle Bob went to adjust our lantern, touching the glass of it by accident, giving him a third-degree burn. This made him let off a very loud scream, but we really didn't make a big deal of it of course because it was a burn for Christ's sake. However, this made one of the park rangers come up to our campsite. He said that were talking very loudly during the park's "quiet hours" and disturbing the other campers. He wanted us to behave better by showing "common courtesy" as he called it, even though my uncle had already had explained to him that he had just gotten burned by our lantern. He warned us (verbally) that if there were any more problems with us that we would be thrown out of the park. This pissed me off, so when (at least I thought) he walked away from our campsite I made fun of him of his term of "common courtesy" while lecturing us. What I didn't realize is that it would come to bite me in the ass much later.

The next day, after being woken up by an unusually full bladder at 8:30 in the morning, we cooked a pound of bacon and left for Knobles Family Fun Park in Elkton, PA. There, I faced one of my worst fears. Heights. Everybody else was riding it so I had no one to talk to while I was waiting and I knew my grandma had already ridden it, so my dad thought that I should start getting over my fears by riding it. It was simply called the "Knobles Scenic Skyline," which was definitely a good name for it considering when I went on it I felt like I was on a different planet far off the ground. What didn't help too was my dad turning around to my cousin and aunt and uncle to take photos of them with his camera phone, shaking the car and almost giving me a heart attack. All I could think about is getting off and touching ground. I guess I learned to never to something like that ever again. Then, after almost fainting from the thrill of the skyline ride and having a concussion from tubing with my father at the water park, we left Knobles.

When we got back to our campsite around 9 pm, we cooked and ate sausages. Afterwards, talking amongst ourselves, guess who showed up. Ranger Rick. Or as we called him, "Ranger Dick." Not very clever I know, okay? He told us that alcohol was prohibited at the park and made us dump out all of our open cans and my aunt Nancy's homemade wine from our cousin Tom. He gave my uncle Bob a (this time written) warning stating that we disobeyed the park's rules and got in trouble by a ranger. This was such bullshit because we all knew that most of the other campers were drinking beer at their campsites and he had just come to pick on us from the night before when we weren't showing "common courtesy." I won't write a letter, but I'm sure someone will. So after being scolded once again by Ranger Dick and having my uncle's buzz killed, I had a nice and cold, sleepless night in the last night of the tent. With another awakening from a full bladder, we got ready for our hike down the trail through the waterfalls of Ricketts Glen. It was very tough, but I think in the long run, it was a good challenge. Like my friend Chelsea's tattoo says, "What doesn't kill me only makes me stronger." I guess that's what the hike was kind of like. The only bad times of it were when my uncle almost broke his hip falling on the rocks of one of the waterfall and my dad twisting his ankle every few miles. This hike was four fucking miles by the way. So after having a stressed coccyx and having the best sandwich of my life that my dad made, I finally got to relax on the drive home from the state park. God knows I'm not going back there to camp again... That was just a few of my many stories of camping.

Oh, and during the week I saw Hancock at the Sayre Theatre. Just an okay movie. Just okay. Charlize Theron was in it, though. =D