Weekend at French Creek

Danielle and I are writing this post to celebrate another successful PA camping trip over the past weekend! We have a jam-packed summer calendar and will not be having a lot of time to camp for another few weeks, so we decided to brave a little rain last Friday and had a great time exploring some local sites near French Creek State Park in Elverson, PA. Fortunately, Elverson is much closer to Philadelphia than Dover (where we camped the previous weekend), so we even had the time to watch Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban Sunday evening after getting home, thereby doubling the weekend's magic. We also wrangled our friends Jenny and Patrick into joining us (for camping, not HP); in fact, it was Patrick who suggested the French Creek since he and Jenny both hail from the area.

So on Friday night Danielle and I set out for the campground and thankfully arrived before dark, and just barely ahead of the rain. We stopped at a Walmart on the way to pick up a tripod grill for campfires, too, which turned out to be a clutch purchase. I want to set that thing up over our stove at home, but it doesn't fit. Hopefully it will work in our new apartment. Anyway, we made it to the site and got set up, bought firewood from some locals' driveway, and then Patrick and Jenny met us at the site just before dark. Patrick had a travel canopy deal that we set up, but of course by that time the rain was basically done for the weekend! We still hung a lantern in it, though, so it was a great place to make our suppers. So that was pretty much Friday.

Saturday morning we got up and headed to breakfast at Ridge Restaurant, right across the street from Patrick and Jenny's high school (Owen J. Roberts HS) near Pottstown, PA. You can see a great picture above of Danielle and Patrick at the restaurant. The place was pretty cheap and had good breakfast, but the highlight of the experience was our first (and possibly last) scrapple tasting! It was not that bad, really, but considering what it is, I will not be going out of my way to buy or prepare it. You can see me on the right with my slab, and below that I am about to take my first bite! Danielle actually nibbled a tiny corner, and she did not even die. You can look up scrapple yourself for more information, but my understanding is that it is all sorts of left-over meat with a bunch of spices. It starts out mushy and speckled grayish, but once fried it looks as it does in the pictures. Unfortunately, at the Ridge they served it fried on the outside but still mushy on the inside: if I ever order it again, I will request it fried throughout...

After breakfast we drove to a nature preserve-type area, apparently run by a land trust(?), to see THE MAGIC TREE!!! Below you can see a couple pictures of Danielle and Patrick at the tree, with Jenny wandering off somewhere; the magic tree does strange things to people, hence its name. In reality it is some kind of willow, and is something like a couple hundred years old. As you can see from the paint and maybe some carvings, it is a popular hoodlum destination, but the land and the tree were beautiful and the weather cooperative. Danielle also made friends with a lady who was having lunch on the grounds with her "red hat society." I always tell D that the elderly are her demographic. 

After our brief stop at the Magic Tree we headed to St. Peter, a small village situated almost entirely on one stretch of road between two hills; above the road is an old quarry with beautiful blue/green water which we thought could be a pool at a park like Disney World's Animal Kingdom. Behind the inns, ice cream shops, and bakeries of the village is a stream where all the boulders were dumped once they were removed from the quarry. Now the stream has done a beautiful job of rerouting around the boulders, and serves as a beautiful hiking and swimming destination. The area was pretty busy, but we were still easily able to hop around on the rocks and wade in the stream. We actually had so much fun we forgot to take ANY pictures, so I apologize for that. From St. Peter we drove to Hay Creek near Birdsboro, PA, and spent the rest of our day exploring there.

The area is apparently also called "Old 82," since most of the path from the road is actually an old, closed off section of Route 82. From the gates at the dead end the path follows Hay Creek for a couple miles and ends at another abandoned quarry. Along the way we moved down to walk next to the creek, where I got stung by a bee on my ankle, but we also got to try (and consistently fail) to catch frogs and newts, which was some pure, innocent fun! A little way on from the gates a dirt road connects to the pavement, leading up a hill to the Birdsboro reservoir. The small lake is completely surrounded by tall pine trees, and the path around the water is covered in red pine needles. The scene is very reminiscent (to me, at least) of Rainy Lake back home. With literally no one else but us up there, it was a great time to reflect and appreciate, well, everything. I might even dub that place the Magic Lake. Below is a picture of me, Jenny, and Patrick at the Magic Lake.

After walking the loop we headed back down to the road, past an active quarry, and finally ended up at the bottom of the old quarry, with steep rock faces rising up all around us. The area is basically a circular pit, with the road entering on the bottom at the only open end. There are two or three tiered ledges running around the outside, presumably left from the mining operation, and the Birdsboro municipality has installed climbing bolts on the rock faces throughout the area, making it a popular rock climbing hangout. As we walked along the ledges, in fact, we walked through several camps of climbers. It is too bad we did not take pictures there, either, because to me it really was stunning. It ALMOST made me want to get into rock climbing, but not quite. We ended the hike on the way back by taking a brief detour to cross the creek via two cables: one of which you walked on, the other you held at about eye level. The old road continues on after that, but we turned around, crossed the cables again, and headed back to the car. That night the weather stayed nice so that we could enjoy a relaxing (and darn well earned) supper and campfire. Sunday morning we headed home, and that was the weekend! Below I have posted one last picture of the Magic Lake.

Thanks for listening to our tale! Talk to you all again soon.

-Rory