Fall Camping Trip - October 1-4, 2014

Left to right: Tom, Ted, Tim, Pat, Jay, David, Kevin, Mark, Scott, and Damon.

The annual fall camping trip was a little earlier this year - the 1st weekend of October instead of the last weekend.  We ended up with a pretty large group, and a few visitors to boot.  Those that camped were Damon, Jay, and Tim Harper, Ted Hemmelgarn, Scott Allison, Pat Conway, David and Mark Morgan, and Tom Givens.  Kevin Stafford came down a couple of days.  A couple of old high school buddies, Jim Givens and Randy Meador came down one evening.  And of course we had a short visit from Freddy Hudson.

We camped this year at the Glade Creek campground, along the New River.  On two sites we had four campers, one tent, and a trailer loaded with fire wood.

The weather was pretty good for the majority of the trip, despite rain on and off for most of Friday, and a dip in the temperature Saturday night (upper 30's).

I didn't take as many pictures as usual for the trip, but I'm posting all the good ones here.

As usual, the trip was a great success; good food, good company, and an overall great time.

Can't wait till next year!

!st camper for a change.

David relaxing

Chow time

THE River.

Best fire on the river!

River Day 09/15/2014

Just me and the Harper boys this week for River Day, and as usual, it was a great start to a new week.  We had good weather, but you can tell that fall is right around the corner; low 70's and clear.

Freddy came down to entertain us with this week's drama, but he was the only other person we saw.  The days of Ron and Judy (okay, Mom) being down at the camp are starting to wind down.

Jay tried fishing for a good while - trying to get in as much late season fishing as he can - but no luck this week.  He seemed to enjoy it, catching or not.

Fires aren't as important to us during the summer months, but we had a small one this week that was appreciated, especially with the evenings cooling off quickly.

We've gotten really bad about keeping this blog updated, and this post is pretty late.  Rest assured we haven't given up on River Day though!

River Day 08/11/2014

Jay and I were the only ones that made it to the river this week (unless you count Freddy and Duwan).  We had a little rain while we were there, but it was otherwise a nice afternoon.  Temps stayed in the mid to upper 70's.  We had some rain at the end of last week and over the weekend, but I was still surprised to see the river up as high as it was.  Usually at this time of year you can walk half way across the river without getting your feet wet, but that wasn't the case on Monday.

Not much going on this week.  Jay and I tried a little fishing between rains.  I caught one small bass but I that that was accidental; the hook got him by the head, not the mouth.  Nothing else was interested.

Duwan got involved in some other project this week involving a Bob Cat.  Kinda looked like he was moving the same rocks that he pulled up a few years ago.  Hope the loader survived the effort.

Sorry for not taking many pics this week, but hey, given the fact that we haven't made a post in over a month, I feel okay with it.

River Day 06/23/2014

Tim, Freddy, and Jay

It's been over a month since the last post to this blog, and nearly as long since the last River Day celebration. All of the regular crew was able to make it this week: Ted, Jay, Tim, and I.  Ron and Judy were at the camp as well, and we had our usual visit from Freddy (we have an actual picture of Freddy this time!).

We could not have asked for any better weather; blue skies and temps in the 80's.  As you can tell from the photos, summer is in full swing, with everything being lush and green.  Even the blue room was smelling fresh this week!

 As usual for this time of year, a good portion of the day was spent fishing.  We weren't catching much, but everything counts - a few suckers and a couple of red eyes.

Sorry to all of the diligent readers of this blog for the lack of posts, but better late than never.

River Day 05/19/2014

It was a busy time at the river this week.  Tim and I were the only ones (Rivertarians anyway) to make it down: Jay was under the weather and Ted was MIA (working?).  It was a nice afternoon/evening - temps around 70 and nothing but sunshine.

I brought a little lumber to add to the woodpile, but from the looks of things around camp, we won't need bring any wood for a while.  The area had some heavy rains over the last week and the river had risen nearly to the fire pit.  As usual, when it receded, lots of stuff to burn was left behind, including some fairly large logs.  We did keep a small fire going while we were there, but we didn't do any real debris pick up.

Tim and I fished for most of the time there, and between the 2 of us, we must have caught nearly 50 fish - we even caught a couple of real ones!  Last week we couldn't find helgies for bait anywhere, this week there was one under nearly every rock we turned over.  Guess they were left behind by the flood water.  I had stopped at the store in Piney View and bought a dozen (needlessly), and Freddy and a guy named Curtis gave us a bunch more.  There is a styrofoam container nearly full to the top of hellgrammites at the camp now.

While Tim and I were catching the "big ones", Wolf (aka/Uncle Si) came down carrying a walleye that Toby caught a few miles upriver.  The fish that he was carrying with a rope (not a stringer) was easily 30 inches long and probably went 15 pounds or so.  Shortly after that, the guys cleaned and cooked the fish.  Wolf came back with a plate loaded with fried pieces and some salsa for dipping.  Can we all say "Yummy!"?

All in all it was a busy place around the camp this week, with lots of visitors: Freddy (along with a volatile can), Wolf, Curtis (?), and Austin (baby daddy) Hix.  Always some great conversations when you have a mixed group.

Sorry the other regulars weren't able to make it this week, but it was a great time at the river.

River Day 05/12/2014

Thought I'd better squeeze in the River Day post from last week before we actually celebrate another one (today!).  Jay was out of town on vacation Monday, so it was Tim, Ted and I at the river.  After an early downpour, we had perfect weather as you can see in the photos; blue skies, low 80's.

Ted and I got down a little earlier than Tim and right after the rain stopped we broke out a mower and weed-eater and gave the camp its first trimming of the season. It wasn't cut as low as we'd have liked, but it was too high (and wet) to try to cut any lower.

After the mowing it was time for fishing.  Tim caught a couple right off the bat with a nightcrawler.  We looked under multiple rocks around the river bank but still couldn't find any helgies.  We'd just about given up on finding any when I turned over a rock about 30 yards away from the waterline and found the first one of the season (no award for that...yet).  Tim found one in the same area and we were able to catch a few, including a small-mouth bass.

For once we can't claim to have had the best fire on the river - we didn't even bother building one.  But if we had...

River Day 04/21/2014

Everyone was at the river again this week to enjoy the holiday.  Seems like we make extra efforts to get there when you get nice warm spring days like we had on Monday.  Some (okay, one) of us even drove a few hundred miles just to get to the river.  Temps were in the low 70's with nothing but blue skies overhead - t-shirt and shorts kinda weather!

We all tried a little fishing early on, hoping to continue what Jay started last week.  No one caught anything, and we still haven't started finding helgies yet.

We had another Bocce tournament - 3 out of 5 - that Ted and I lost.  We either need more practice, or fewer trips to the ice box.

Ron had moved his camper from its temporary spot out of the flood zone, back to the driveway of the camp.  I'm sure they're looking forward to another summer season on the river.

Believe it or not, I didn't take any pictures of the fire this week.  We tried keeping it low key due to the dry conditions; we didn't want to add any more brush fires to the area.

Sorry for the late post this week.