Soggy weekend at Promised Land

Who could forget the Stephen King movie "The Shining"?  Well, I had my own mini-series version of it this past weekend. Two and a half days huddled in a rustic cabin with your wife, listening to the constant pitter-patter of pouring rain will tend to rot your head with all kinds of strange thoughts. Surprisingly, when you’re bored, stoking the fire in a wood stove and falling asleep slouched over in a camp chair can keep you occupied for quite some time. No laptop. No cellular service. No internet. No TV. No booze. AM radio (if you’re lucky). You need a lantern or flashlight to read, because the cabins are back in the woods quite a ways and they’re relatively dark inside – even on a sunny day.

Raw. Cold. Wet. Felt like temps were hovering around 50-55° and it rained so damn hard all weekend, you couldn’t really see things outside. Skunked again. That’s twice in the last three weeks. Trying to relax and sleep seemed like a good course of action, and I gave in without much of a fight.  There were several reports in the "cabin log" about a black bear who liked hanging around our cabin, but we didn’t see hide ‘nor hair of him, except for the lower half of some trees that looked like they were picked apart to get at bugs. That didn’t stop my wife from worrying about him one bit though. She spent most of the weekend pacing around the cabin, staring out the windows, jumping at small noises and requiring an armed escort to use the bathroom (about 20 paces away).  The only repeat visitors we had were a pair of squirrels, ‘ol one-eyed jack and his mistress, who appeared to be ready to fart out another litter of young. The rain went about it’s business all weekend and didn’t seem like it would ever end… that is, until we started packing up to leave on Monday morning, and it suddenly became beautiful outside. Managed to sneak in a whole two hours on the lake in the canoe. Pfft. Them’s the breaks though, I guess.  All things considered, it was a welcome retreat from the rest of the world and could have been much, much worse.

If anyone’s still considering a visit to the Promised Land State Park, it’s located in the extreme northeast corner of Pennsylvania about halfway between the Delaware Water Gap and Scranton. Here’s a map. Not much out there except trees, rocks and… more trees. Great fishing for pike and bass in both the upper and lower lakes, provided the weather doesn’t turn foul on you. The park is located about 1800 feet above sea level on the Pocono Plateau, which makes it feel a bit different than the surrounding areas. Kinda reminds me of the Boundary Waters out in northern Minnesota. This will be our fifth or sixth time at the park, and it’s by far my favorite place within a few hours drive to just get away from it all. Hoping to return soon when the weather isn’t in such a bad mood.