Spring Turkey Hunt 2011

Well the weather is finally yucky enough to keep me inside today and let me update my blog, haha :P  I just can not find the time to be on the computer in the basement when we have nice weather and it's been beautiful the past week. I've been working on this blog post all week, ugh.

The first week of May we were away on our annual spring camping/hunting trip.  We packed up the whole house (for real) and left on Saturday, April 30th to head up to the mountains.  we went to one of our favorite Pennsylvania state parks, World's End.  It's in the endless mountain region or Pennsylvania wilds and so beautiful. 

We made really good time and got there around 4pm.  We unpacked and ordered a load of firewood from a local patron.  We had decided that it would be best to cut out our tent camping part of the trip this year and just stay in the cabin the whole time.  The cabins are "rustic" they have electric but no indoor plumbing or heat.  There is a wood stove for heat though and we used it a few times and got the cabin nice and toasty.

(the kitchen, dining room, living room area)

The bedroom:

our outdoor space:

I love this outdoor fireplace and we spent a lot of time in front of it.  It was nice to have when we got some rain too.

There was also a lot of wooded area around our cabin that the kids just loved playing in and exploring.  The bathroom wasn't far from our cabin either.  After we got our firewood all stacked up we ate dinner and then took a drive up to the vista to look at the mountains.  It really does seem as though they are endless.

I really wanted to stay and watch the sun set all the way but we had ice cream in the truck so we had to go :)

Sunday we all went out "scouting" for good turkey hunting spots.  With the kids though we didn't see a whole lot of wildlife.  Joanna was obsessed with picking flowers, again, that's still all she wants to do.

On the way out from our hike we noticed the gate:

Hmmm, what could that be from??
That evening Ricky's parents drove to join us.  They had their own little cabin right up the hill from us.  For some reason I didn't get any pictures of them though so I have no "proof" that they were there :P
Monday morning Ricky left bright and early in the morning to try and get a turkey.  You can hunt till noon so he came back for breakfast but then went back out until lunchtime.  He saw a bear in the woods but no turkey.  we went out fishing in the afternoon and then out to eat. 
Tuesday morning I got to go out hunting with Ricky.  We were only gone for a few hours and didn't see any turkeys, or even hear any, but it was nice to be out and "kid less" for a little while.  We saw a deer walking in the woods about 40 yard from where we were sitting and it never even knew we were there.  On the way home we saw a lone turkey walking in a field really far away.  I have a good zoom on my camera and actually got a shot of it.  It's still not clear enough to tell if it was a tom or not though.

we also saw another deer on the way back:

was pretty much the same except that it rained something fierce in the evening.  I had taken Joanna and Chase to get showers and by the time we were done it was pouring rain so we had another shower on the way back to the cabin :P  It was raining so hard that we couldn't even sit on our covered porch by the fire.  The kids didn't mind at all being couped up in the cabin though.

The floor of the cabin was so dirty that anytime we would set Katy down she would get all black.  so poor Katy had to spend most of the week either on the table under supervision or in her bouncy seat, or being held if possible.  She didn't mind too much though.

there were a couple cracks of thunder that made it sound like the storm was right overhead but it moved pretty quickly.

It rained all night and into the next day.  Ricky's parents left Wednesday morning and then the sun cleared up and I was able to go for a walk with the kids.  Since Ricky was gone in the mornings the kids and I would walk to the ranger station and the park every morning.  There were lots of things to look at in the ranger station, and books to read and one of the ladies was even nice enough to let the kids play with a box of puppets she had.  Wednesday afternoon, Ricky took Chase to a little pond nearby to fish and I walked with Katy and Joanna to the ranger station and park.

finding more flowers:

We went for a quick bike ride in the evening after dinner.  Chase rode his bike and I pulled the girls in the trailer and Ricky rode his bike.

Thursday was a beautiful day and I went for another walk with the kids. we went to the park first.

I just love her face in this picture... the girl loves to swing :)

When we stopped at the ranger station we went out back to look at their perennial gardens... there wasn't much coming up but we got to see the birds at the feeders.

I very much enjoyed the walk back to the cabin too... it was so beautiful.

The Loyalsock Creek was pretty fast and high the whole time we were there from all the spring rain.

In the afternoon we went fishing again.  We went to a spot on the creek that had a nice stony spot for us to stand on and the kids to play on.  There were plenty of rocks for them to throw in the water too, probably why we never catch anything, but they have fun so that's what matters :)

"I'm too busy to smile at the camera, mom"

chase, striking a kung-fu pose:

After fishing for a little while and not catching anything we decided to go scouting another time.  Ricky had a spot in mind that he wanted to check out but we'd never been there before and ended up driving on some roads that I couldn't believe were actually called roads, it was incredible.  We got so far back in to what seemed like the middle of no where and yet there were houses back there.  And it was beautiful of course. I made Ricky stop driving so I could take a picture.

We bumped around on the back roads for a while before heading back to the cabin for the evening.
Friday morning Ricky went out in the morning again and the kids and I rode our bikes to the park again.

Katy loved being pushed in the swing.

I'm not sure what we did in the evening.

Saturday we mostly just cleaned and packed up but we did get to enjoy some time in front of the fire too.

In the evening we drove up to the vista one last time so I could get one last look at that view.

The kids enjoyed calling for turkeys as we were driving.

Sunday was Mother's Day. We got up bright and early, packed up the last of our things and hit the road.  We stopped at Cracker Barrel for a really nice Mother's day breakfast and ended up getting home around noon. 
The kids had so much fun, running around the woods, collecting sticks and rocks and flowers, chasing chipmunks and each other and just being kids.  We had such a great time and can't wait until next year :)