Archer Vly with Janet

Posted on 22 Oct 2021 by Steve Markham

For my 40th night this year, I wanted to try a new spot, Archer Vly. The kids were sleeping over at Grandma and Grandpa’s house, so Janet came with.

It was hands-down the best camping night of the year so far

Archer Vly is a quiet little pond not too far past Daketown State Forest.

As soon as Camille and I were home from MathCounts we packed up and took the kids over to A&N’s. Kyle made arrangement for a virtual cello lesson, meaning Janet and I got to camp just as it was getting dark.

The camera couldn't see the star shining through the branches, but it was a lovely sunset

We had asian salad and apple chicken sausage for dinner. I found some couscous at Aldi this week that I wanted to try, so I also had some couscous and dill havardi cheese with my meal.

I sat in my hammock and Janet sat on the bear can across from me while we ate

After dinner we looked at the stars. The moon was very bright, and the still water reflected everything beautifully

Janet spent the first few hours sleeping in the hammock to see how she liked it. Not enough to stay all night, so she switched places with me around 1am. Janet’s pad is very comfortable, but I think we both slept better after the switch. It rained overnight, hard, but it wasn’t too windy.

Rain that falls straight down is no trouble at all

Site #4 at Archer Vly

The pond water looked questionable and we weren’t too hungry, so we decided to walk around the pond before breakfast. There was extra water in the car. This was a great plan, in theory.

The trees and the pond were lovely, but the trail was hard to follow at times

I hadn't brought my filter bag, or else I'd have filled up at this perfect little spring along the trail

There are 4 sites around the pond, and nice as ours was, it was the worst of the lot by far.

#3 looks amazing, and I'll take the kids there tomorrow night, probably.

In addition to not having my filter, turns out we also didn’t have the car keys. Hiking with such a cute girl is distracting, what can I say. We finished the full loop, grabbed the water bag, and then were unable to find the spring! But we found a different one, eventually.

Breakfast was scrambled eggs and oatmeal. The key to making scrambled eggs over high heat in a thin aluminum pot is lots of butter. The key to scrambled eggs in general is always butter and salt, but I was happy that my pot was clean at the end of cooking the eggs.

After we ate we packed up and walked out and were home by 11:15 or so. It was so fun to camp with Janet and no kids. I can’t remember the last time we did that, because it might have been before we had kids.

Tagged with: family outdoors

Keep the conversation going on Mastodon