Saturday, October 30, 2010

Deer are idiots

A quiet day today. We got up and went for a hike near where we stayed in the Alleghany park, NY. Then we did a fair bit of driving through the park and went for a stroll.

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on the hiking route was a state line marker between PA and NY. I liked standing in 2 states at once.

We headed for a campsite in the Ohiopyle state park.

imageThis is a massive site that’s mostly closed off this time of year but still seems to have a lot of folks camping. The way a lot of them were clustered and something about them made me think there’s something of the church about them or perhaps they’re here for the Deer hunting. This is deer season and I nearly bagged one myself.

 

 

I used to think Deer were ok, but my opinion is turning. We saw multiple corpses en route to the campsite yesterday and we nearly made one ourselves!

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This is becoming a familiar site – searching for a campsite down a very dark road.

As we drove along this road a deer appeared on the right. I had the feeling it was not going to give way to the mighty ‘burban, and I was right. As we were about 40 feet away it went for it and bolted straight across our path. I learned a few things in those few seconds; deer have no road-sense, my anti-lock breaks do work and will stop the car quite quickly, and that I can swear like a sailor when stressed. The words of been changed to protect the innocent, but I shouted a torrent of abuse at the fleeing creature along the lines of: ‘you fudging piece of deer sugar. I’m going to come back with a gun and fudging hunt you and your fudging family down, you piece of sugar.

Overkill, I know, but it was so nearly a smashed grill, headlight, radiator,bonnet and deer. No doubt the deer would not been killed outright so we’d have had the stress and guilt of leaving a wounded animal by the road side to compound the frustration of the repair bill.

Had it not been for, though I say so myself, a skilful bit of driving and braking there would have been damage. I hit the anchors hard and steered the car to the left to give a bit more time to avoid the collision – it worked, phew!

Anyway, we got to the site unscathed and after reading the instructions about paying after hours using an envelope and the honour system, we went to find our pitch. We started the fire and got the stuff out the car. I was trying to decided if i wanted to be honest and wondered if we got up at 5 and left, we’d be able to avoid the charge.

Just as I finished that thought and decided that honesty was not the best policy, who should roll by in his state-issue Ford Explorer? Mr. Plod himself. Bollox… He was rounding up the late arrivers and getting them to come to the office to choke up the $19 we owed the state as well as the $5 out of state charge! it seem that if you’re ‘not from ‘round here’ you have to pay a little more!

That done, we decided to make dinner using the fire and the Dutch oven. We had noodles, onion, chipotle, cabbage, can of tomatoes and water. We let that simmer on the fire for bit and it went from:

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Steff preparing. I chopped the onion and made the fire, so we’re even

 

 

 

 

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Ready to go

 

 

 

 

 

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Outdoor cooking the real way.

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Yum!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Today we’re going to the Frank Lloyd Wright house called Fallwater, then on to Pittsburgh, PA.

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