Visit with my brothers, a few days at Little Pine (posted from home)
(this post covers the period 4-11 October)

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Wednesday, October 11-

Shortly after waking up (in Mocha Joe at Little Pine State Park) this morning I noticed a movement out the back windows. Four deer were grazing there and watching them made for a very pleasant way to wake up. I was surprised how quickly they browsed through the area. I don’t know what they were feeding on but they seemed to be scanning for something and only occasionally reaching down to feed. Two of them were only about a meter high. That seems awfully small for this late in the year. One of the larger ones seemed to hang back from the others but I soon saw why—it was limping quite badly. After breakfast I drove over to the park office and spoke with the ranger. The limping deer has been around for at least a year and seems to be getting by. They don’t know how it came to be injured.
With rain threatening today, I decided to cruise the state forest roads and get a look around. I used my Tiadaghton State Forest map to identify some overlooks on the forest roads and drove to them through a shower of leaves. The windy morning was causing the road to all but disappear under me in a carpet of bright yellows and reds. Shortly after topping out I saw six turkeys crossing the road ahead. Again the turkeys merely kept walking, even though I came within ten yards of them. As they went over the side I stopped the van and jumped out to get a look but they had already descended out of sight.
I stopped at a turnaround for a look at the map and at a set of maps of the Mid-State Trail. After a half-hour or so I stepped out of the van for a look around and was just thinking I’d probably not see anybody all day given that I was on a dead-end road when a pickup appeared. I spoke for a few minutes with the hunter who said he was just out scouting today since it was too windy to hunt.
I then drove to an overlook on Ramsey Road and it was a good one. It looked down on Pine Creek and the little town of Waterville. But off in the distance I could see heavy rain clouds. I then drove down Dam Run Road to Waterville and back to the park. I stopped at the shooting range and the archery range to check them out. The shooting range would be fun since it had six different distances and good benches. The archery range was very basic—just a grassy field with three stacked bales of hay— but better than no range.
I then followed Little Pine Creek looking for a place to fish but it’s very low and didn’t seem to have any pools. Then it started to sprinkle so I never did get any fishing in this morning. Around noon I headed for home and made it by 1530. At home, I immediately got out my mower and mowed the lawn under threatening skies. I had left on Monday knowing I really shouldn’t go without mowing the lawn but it had been a beautiful day and the lawn would just have to wait.
That night we watched ‘Lucky Number Slevin’. This was a second viewing for me but that’s ok, the story moves quickly and is told in a confusing manner. Also, when renting it I had selected it because I thought Labashi wouldn’t be interested in a violent movie and it turned out not to be all that graphically violent.


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Tuesday, October 10-

This morning I hiked south on the Mid-State Trail. This section is very different than yesterday’s. It was mostly side-hilling on a very steep bank above Little Pine Creek. I walked south for about four kilometers, most of it on rocky trail no wider than my hiking boots and covered in leaves. I didn’t really have any problems with it but picked my way carefully so I could avoid having to self-arrest on that steep bank if I were to slip. I turned around where the trail crossed a forest road and started climbing steeply—enough wear and tear on the feet for today! I flushed a grouse in that area and on the way back I saw five turkeys. The turkeys crossed the trail from left to right in front of me and about 20 yards ahead, climbing that steep bank with no apparent effort. They never appeared to want to fly—they just kept walking fast and maintaining distance between us.
Back at the campground a little boy of about six on his teeny-tiny little bicycle stopped as he passed by. He said “Hey, mister, did you hear the noise last night? That was a BEAR!” He went on to explain that a bear had been in the dumpsters last night. I thought it was probably a raccoon rattling garbage cans. But I did get a kick out of the wide-eyed look on the little boy. It reminded me of being his age and having a great fear of groundhogs (yeah, the FEROCIOUS ones). I have no idea how that came about. I was never attacked or threatened by a groundhog. In fact I had never seen one. But somehow the word ‘groundhog’ represented all the things-that-go-bump-in-the-night or, perhaps more correctly, the things-that-chase-you-down-and-eat-you night-monsters of childhood. To this day I have a strong visual of my view as I stood in front of my bedroom window one summer evening. I stared into our rural back yard as darkness slowly closed down the view. The fireplace at the far end of the yard was swallowed up and the darkening woods grew ever more ominous-- and I knew a death-swamp lay beyond that. There was SOMEthing out there… and it’s name was…….. GROUNDHOG!!!!!!
Fortunately for me, when Mom later learned of my fear of groundhogs, she pointed one out to me and I said something like “What? THAT little thing is a GROUNDHOG?” and that was the end of my being terrorized by groundhogs.
Anyway, back to the present: I got back to the van about 1330 and made lunch, then drove over to the park office to register for another night. On the way I stopped at the dumpsters to drop off my trash. There on the side of the dumpster was proof my little buddy was right --- muddy bear-paw prints! When I pointed them out to another camper who happened by, he said there are three of them in the area. If that’s the case, the park is not doing them any favors by allowing them to get into the garbage; they should install bear-proof dumpsters like we saw in the Rockies. I also drove to the store at Waterville to get some ice and supplies. When I returned I dug out my fishing gear. I had done a lot of fishing five years ago but none since. I’ve bought licenses the last two years but didn’t use last year’s at all and today was the first time fishing this year. Better late than never!
I fished for about two hours without catching any, then walked back to Mocha Joe to make supper. I had seen three trout following my lures and was very happy for the chance to see them even if I didn’t fool them onto the hook. Two were in the 10-12-inch range, the other about 14 inches.
After supper I headed back for some more fishing but didn’t have any luck or see any fish in the riffles downstream from the dam. As darkness approached it occurred to me that the bear had been seen last night not far from here so I stopped a little earlier than I had planned and headed back to the van. I lit a Kwik Kampfire and sat watching the flames until 2000, then fired up the laptop and watched ‘Lucky Number Slevin’ with Bruce Willis and Josh Hartnett. If you like action movies with plot twists and non-sequential story-telling, this one’s pretty good.

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Monday, October 9-
Today Labashi and I woke at my brother’s house at 0745 and Labashi suddenly remembered that I had a dental appointment at 0900 at my periodontist’s office an hour and fifteen minutes away. I’ve got to quit allowing them to schedule me on Mondays. They called on Friday to remind me but over the weekend I forgot all about it. In any case, I put the pedal to the metal in good ole Mocha Joe and we made it with five minutes to spare, time enough to get out the mouthwash and toothpaste just before my appointment.
My appointment was to uncover the bone graft that had been done earlier in the summer and add a temporary fitting piece so my regular dentist can put on a crown in a few weeks. The appointment only took about a half hour and I found Labashi happily reading away in Mocha Joe afterwards.
At home we unloaded Labashi’s travel gear and I gathered up some food supplies to head back out. I want to get out into the woods for a few days and Labashi’s busy with her fall gardening projects.
I drove north up US15 to Lewisburg, then White Deer, then turned off onto Route 44. I just picked out this route after leaving the house. I’m not sure yet where I’m going but the scenic-road dots of Route 44 called to me as I scanned the map. After Jersey Shore I followed 44 up into the Pine Creek Valley and on to Little Pine State Park. The draw is the Mid-State Trail—I’d like to sample a little of it.
At Little Pine I found a campsite and grabbed my daypack and started hiking north on the Mid-State Trail by 1630. The trail switches back up the mountain quite steeply but that was good. I’ve not been on the trail for awhile and could use a workout. I was a little surprised I was able to keep going most of the time and only stopped occasionally for a sip of water. By 1745 I knew I’d better be careful about oncoming darkness. I made it to the Spike Buck trail about then and had a discussion with myself about whether it was smart to take the unknown Spike Buck Trail or better to retreat down the now-known Mid-State Trail segment I had just come up. The former was a bit over-grown and not as well marked. On the other hand, it descended down a water drainage that was very evident. Even if the trail disappeared I could follow the drainage down to the hard road. So that’s how the ‘unknown quantity’ beat the ‘known quantity’—shaky logic. But it turned out fine. The trail didn’t give me any surprises and by 1845 I was back at the campground—a whole 15 minutes before dark.
I spent the evening blogging and then watched a movie I brought along because of these dark-early evenings—‘Jarhead’. It was OK.

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Sunday, October 8-
The Three Amigos got bored around lunch time today and went to the shooting range in the nearby Michaux State Forest. I’ve not been on a range in 30 years but managed to out-shoot both of my younger brothers. (But, hey, do me a favor and don’t ask them about it, OK? They may tend to stretch the truth a little and I wouldn’t want to embarrass them now that you know the real story). Actually, I think I came in third but it was a STRONG third.
Seriously though, I was surprised how well we all did. We had everything in the scoring rings at 90 yards (which surprised all of us—we didn’t have strong enough binoculars and couldn’t tell where they were hitting!).
After the shoot-em-up we returned home for an excellent roast beef dinner and some birthday cake for our 85+ year-old Mom.

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Saturday, October 7-
Today we drove to my brother’s home about an hour away. My other brother drove down from New York for a weekend visit. Labashi and us three boys spent most of the afternoon catching up on each other’s news, looking at Labashi’s pictures from our trip and laughing quite a lot. That evening we went out to dinner for crab cakes then came back to the house and tortured my 19-year-old nephew with tales of what it was like ‘in the old days’ when we were his age. I’m not sure HE had fun but WE sure did.

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Friday, October 6-
Today was a rainy day and we spent most of it on the road chasing down ‘stuff’. Labashi is in the process of designing new lights for the bathroom and after much research and shopping around located the right parts. We just could not find any ready-made fixtures we (actually she) likes so she’s ordering parts and we’ll assemble them. She had done this for our ceiling light in the kitchen and it turned out very well. Before departing on our trip she had ordered some globes and that was the prime reason for our trip today. Along the way we also dropped off a roll of film for one-hour processing and we bought a new cooler. The old 48-quart cooler is just a tad too small and isn’t insulated as well as we’d like. The new one is a 70-quart marine cooler and has much better insulation and the features we like (drain plug, good seal on the lid, food tray, and compartment divider). No movies tonight—we just worked at our respective computers all evening.

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Thursday, October 5-
Our new refrigerator was delivered this morning. We were surprised to see the delivery guys carry the old unit out and bring the new one in by simply running a 3-inch strap under the fridge. The two guys then each took three or four winds of the strap around their wrists and muscled it from there. We very much liked the idea of no dolly to beat up our stairs or walls but the heave-ho technique does depend on them to keep very good control over the balance of the fridge. But they did it like pros. When we complimented them, one of the guys said they do it this way six days a week so get a lot of practice at it. I can’t imagine.
That afternoon I received my call that the Concours was ready so Labashi drove me in to pick it up. I need to test more extensively but preliminary results are that I don’t have the deceleration wobble with this set of Avons; they seem very smooth right through the trouble range of RPMs. At home, I finished a job I had started earlier in the day- washing and waxing the Miata. I needed to do the waxing to fix a problem. When I had the clutch work done, I had parked the car under a pine tree at the garage and it had dripped sap in four places on the hood and trunk. I had used a little bug-and-tar (and sap) remover to take off the sap but the rubbing had left marks in the finish. I thought I’d try another application of Nu-finish before deciding whether I’d have to commit suicide over it. It came out well so that makes the decision easy.
That evening we watched the Extra Features diskette on ‘Lost, Season Two’. Nothing exciting there but it did remind us that they did some pretty interesting things this season.
It’s also interesting to hear the producers and directors talk to us about what they considered important or difficult to do this season.

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Wednesday, October 4-
This morning I did some email and blogging then we dropped off the Concours for its new tires and inspection tomorrow. In the afternoon I took the KLR out for a ride on this very nice day. I had put my float-charger on the KLR’s battery yesterday and had noticed its charge-state light had gone from yellow to green within ten minutes or so of hookup. So the charging system is at least working well enough to fully charge the battery when I don’t have the jacket liner on and cranked to max. I’ll have to rig up a way to monitor the charging system and do some reading about normal system voltage ranges to decide what kind of problem I have, though at this point I suspect a weak battery. The bike’s electrical system should support use of the liner. On today’s KLR ride, I went back to the cycle shop to ensure the mechanic does the best job possible tomorrow with the wheel-balance on the Concours.
That evening we watched three more ‘Lost, Season Two’ episodes to finish off the season. Now we wait another year for Season Three. I’m glad we do it this way, though, rather than try to catch it on television week after week.