The Casino, the Cabin, the Concert, the Critter.

Well, you guessed it…..there was a ton of traffic on the Cross Bronx Expressway!! We did finally make it out of the metropolitan area and had a nice visit with Greg’s family in Scranton and then continued on toward our little cabin in the woods. We decided to do a little casino camping on the way. It was getting late anyway, and plus Casino camping is a lot of fun, especially when you win. (We didn’t win)

For this trip we decided to bring the bikes along plus we had some bins filled with stuff we wanted to bring to the cabin. The van was packed leaving me no room for my fun van-bed. So I had just enough room to set up a hammock in the van for the night. Not exactly the best sleeping conditions but it was Ok for an overnighter. In the morning, we enjoyed a nice buffet breakfast with the hotel. We really blend in well with the other hotel guests even though we stayed in the van.

After breakfast, we headed to our little cabin in the woods located in Western NY. It’s always a mystery coming to the cabin. This time, there were a few trees down, not big ones, but still Greg had to do a bit of”Trail Maintenance” so that we could make our way in.

The cabin is one of my favorite places to be. It’s so relaxing and peaceful and quiet.

We got lucky coming to the cabin on a Thursday because that’s the night that they do auctions in the area. We drove out to Scio to attend the auction. The auctions are usually filled with about 200 people or so and about 30 of them are Amish. Our cabin is in an Amish Community which we love. The Amish do not like to have their photo taken so I pretended to take a picture of Greg with this dresser at the auction and was able to catch a bunch of the Amish in the reflection of the mirror.

I went head to head with one of them on the below item. I won the church bells for $12.50. And I love them. I also won the Coffee Grinder. We spent 20 bucks on that, but there was another one that went up to $50, so I know it is worth something. For us, we are gonna clean it up and actually use it for grinding coffee beans because we love the French press coffee.

We bought tickets a few months ago to see Marshall Tucker Band, Charlie Daniels Van and Lynard Skynard at the Darian Lake Amusement and Water Park. The tickets were only 10 bucks and that includes free parking and free entry into the park. It was a perfect day for a water park and it was a really fun concert!!

We got back to the cabin pretty late. It was midnight and we have to hike in to get to the cabin. As I got closer, I noticed the cooler that we have on the deck was turned over. This is a telltale sign that a bear was around. So before I opened the door, I peered inside with my headlamp and saw that the inside of the cabin was TRASHED!! It was just turned upside down! Greg, at this point is still at the van, I went ahead cause he was getting stuff together in the van. So here I am alone in the dark, and I’m not sure if the bear is still in the cabin or not. I see the screen from the window that he knocked in and climbed in. and then…. I hear a noise coming from the loft. That’s when I see Greg’s light coming towards me in the woods and I get off the deck and yell out to him about how some kind of animal got into the trailer. He doesn’t really believe me at first, but then peers in the window and sees the mess. We make lots of noise, lots and lots of noise and nothing responds so we figured it’s safe to go inside. We notice right away lots of raccoon footprints. I was so happy to see those tiny footprints and not bear footprints!! Anyway, he really caused quite a mess and he spilled kerosene everywhere. We spent most of the night cleaning and all the next day as well. Below is a video of the mess. Then a photo of the mess and a photo of after we cleaned up the mess.

Finally once everything was cleaned up, we headed to the Fillmore beach to cool off and wash up.

While at the beach, a big, dark, ominous cloud started heading our way, so we headed back to the cabin. Unfortunately, it came down pretty hard while we hiked in and we got DRENCHED!! Spent the rest of the day in the cabin. We were able to do a great job cleaning the coffee grinder. Greg took the whole thing apart. I scrubbed all the rust off and oiled it up nicely. We even got it up on the wall and tested it out.! I LOVE IT! And it goes perfectly next to my Aunt Theresa’s wash basin!

Tomorrow we head to Alleghany National Forest in Pennsylvania.