Archer Vly with Lewis

Posted on 24 Oct 2021 by Steve Markham

I had such a fun trip with Janet Thursday and Friday that I invited the kids to join me at Archer Vly Saturday night. I had one taker, so at 4:30 I picked him up from a birthday party and we headed to the pond.

The spot was very popular–we got the last available site. There was a solo camper there when Janet and I hiked through on Friday, and he left a lot of neatly piled wood, with bark on top keeping the rain off.

Dinner was chicken, carrots, potatoes, onions and salt. Lewis claims this was his first foil dinner experience. He liked my chicken (with bbq sauce) better than his, but seemed to prefer un-sauced veggies.

It got cold last night. My phone turned itself off and refused to turn itself back on until well after six when it had sufficiently warmed up. I think Lewis and I went to the bathroom around 1:30 (based on the moon being directly overhead), and after that we both got into the same hammock to warm back up. Lewis sleeps pretty still, so that worked out much better than I had feared.

We had oatmeal and scrambled eggs for breakfast, and burned the rest of our wood to keep warm. My fingers got SO cold while packing things up. Around 7 or so we loaded up and headed for home.

The drive home was a lovely Fall drive in the Northeast. Lewis “ooh, aah”-ed whenever I told him to look at the scenery, just as Dewey taught the kids this summer. We played I Spy most of the way home.