Between a Good Time and a Great Time

My wife and I both grew up camping, so we want our boys to have the same love of the outdoors, and fond childhood memories that we have because of camping.  We have found with a little planning we can turn potential good times into great times.

Each summer we plan various trips around Northwest PA and usually at least twice a year we make it the cabin my Grandfather built, that my Uncle now owns.  It's a wonderful place full of rich memories for me, and in all honestly "cabin" is a bit of an understatement.  The building could easily be used as a full time residence by nearly anyone that doesn't mind a bit of a drive to the grocery store.  All the same it backs up against 100's of acres of timber property, with a network of old logging roads, 4 wheeler tracks, and even the remnants of a small gauge railroad track used to mine sandstone and soft coal, we've affectionately named "the dinky track."  There's a mid century fire tower nearby, underneath of which is an old USGS marker which would have been used to map the mountain years ago.

To supplement the trips to my Uncle's cabin, we have branched out looking for campgrounds to take the boys.  Since we don't own a proper tent for all of us, and the idea of sharing a tent with boys as young as ours leaves a bit to be desired, we try to go to campgrounds where we can rent a cabin.  This has made the searching very tough, and cost us more money than typical camping trips, it has also taught us invaluable lessons about what we like in a campground.

Not to overstate it, but I LOVE Google maps.  I will use Google searches to trackdown a couple prospective campgrounds, but Google maps tells the real story.

Our 2011 camping trip is a tremendous example of this:  Robert had just turned 6 and Aiden was about to be 1.  After a successful trip to my Uncle's cabin, I found Pymatuning Campground, Pymatuning State Park, Andover OH.  This location stuck out, because of the Yurts they had available to rent.  A Yurt is a round tent with a peaked ceiling.  At the park they have them erected on a wooden deck with a covered picnic table.  Inside, two futon style bunkbeds, plus a sink and small refrigerator.  The brochure pictures look amazing, but that's really easy to do.  What does the Google satellite image show us?

In the above screen grab you will see a double driveway entering the park.  Near the top center you can make out 4 round white dots.  A single dot with a driveway, two dots with one driveway, then another single dot with a driveway.  Those dots are the Yurts.  You'll notice how close those are to the road, and the lack of tree cover in that section of the campground.  Couple that with the multiple paved spurs off of the driveways and this is obviously the section of the campground that is much more RV park then campground.  Not that there's anything wrong with that, but this is good information to have prior to booking.  If you like big woods, long hikes, this might not be the place.  However, there was a clean, guarded beach, plus some flea markets nearby and the ever popular Pymatuning Deer Park.  So we packed walking shoes instead of hiking boots, plus swim trunks, and we had a grand weekend.

In 2012 with our boys a year older, and Aiden in the full thralls of the terrible twos, we made the decision we'd try just one night, but we wanted a much more secluded location.  Our plan, over the course of one week, was to spend a couple nights at my Uncle's, then branch out to a campground in the Allegheny National Forest.  We quickly discovered that Willowbay was the only Forest controlled campground with cabins available.  That was fine because as Google Maps showed this area had exactly what we wanted.

The primary driveway leaves the main road and serves all the campsites, plus the boat dock at the end of the campground.  If your eye follows the driveway, there is a parking lot near the center of the picture.  To the left of that parking area there is a thicker wooded area between the road and the shore.  It is in that wooded area where they have installed 10 simple one room cabins.

The cabins have a bunk bed and a twin bed.  You must provide your own linens, but each cabin has electricity.  From where the above picture is taken there is a walking path to my left, and on the other side of the path is a primitive campsite for tent camping that is directly on the water.  If you are at all into canoeing or kayaking I would highly recommend Willowbay. I would say for an ideal experience rent the cabin to have a dry comfortable place to sleep, then for a few bucks more rent the primitive site nearby.  Now you can leave your canoe in the primitive site, and have the benefits of the dry cabin when night falls.

While planning for our 2013 outing I was taking a drive around Oil Creek State Park.  Robert is getting to the age where the historical stuff is starting to get neat, and Oil Creek offers me miles and miles of trails.  On my drive I stumbled upon a sign for Oil Creek Family Campground.  The entry sign left me a little flat, but on their website I discovered they have several cabins for rent, at very reasonable prices.  My next question:  What does Google maps show me? 

Obviously heavily wooded, so I like it off the bat.  To the right of this picture is nothing but State Park land all the way down to Oil Creek.  In fact there is a hiking trail that connects the campground to the network of trails in the State Park.  It may only be the middle of January, but I think we have found a campground to book for 2013.

Spend a little time on your computer, scouting new locations, and your time away from home will be well spent.

Happy Camping
Scott M

Oil Creek State Park

A little less than an hour south of Erie lies a small region of Northwest PA that very few people outside of the region have even heard of, let alone visited.  Yet events that happened there over 150 years ago have shaped the very direction of human life on this planet.  There is not a single day that goes by where we don't come into contact with the technology founded in this region of PA.  Of course I'm talking about Oil Creek, and the corridor that connects Oil City, Titusville and Warren.  It was here along the banks of a little known creek where Col Edwin Drake developed technology to efficiently extract crude oil from the Earth.

For centuries native peoples knew of small pockets in the region where a black slimy substance bubbled up from the ground and spoiled the water nearby.  They found out if you separated that substance from the water it would burn.  It stunk and gave off black smoke, but if you dipped cloth in it, it would be easier for you to transport fire starting material.  This is a critical skill in any nomadic or even semi-nomadic people.

In the post Civil War years whales were slaughtered en mass for their fat.  This fat could be easily boiled down and transported, making for cheap and safe lamp oil.  Lamp oil that eventually became so popular that whale population began to pay a hefty price.  Necessity being the mother of invention, people began looking for cheaper sources of lamp oil. 

Crude oil, while cheap, was not efficient to hand dip out of a few swamps here and there.  So what Col Drake did was to develop the first efficient drilling and piping rig to be used to give the crude oil a controlled method of escape.  And thus was born the modern age. 

Without oil the auto industry doesn't leave the ground.  Internal combustion engines are inefficient dreams.  And the plastics that encompass our entire modern lives never exists.  All of those things are derived from crude oil that Col Drake's pipes released from the ground.

Presently the heavily wooded region surrounding Drake's well has been preserved as a State Park, saving both the natural beauty of the region. The actual historic site is preserved with a museum, and for a nominal fee you can explore the grounds and view some amazing old equipment.  The park has over 50 miles of hiking and biking trails, plus a historic train ride available seasonally.  Tent camping is available in several areas, and some simple lean-to shelters you can stay in while hiking. 

This past weekend I took my youngest son down to the museum.  It was just a short trip on Sunday, and we spent our time hiking along a couple of the shorter trails, and just enjoying the pleasant January weather.  We did drive several of the roads around the park, but be warned, many have no winter maintenance.  We were lucky that the recent thaw had cleared the way, but I could see several areas that would have been quite sketchy during a normal January.

Happy Exploring
Scott M

Munzee - 21st Century Scavenger Hunt

A few months back a friend of mine casually mentioned something about "Munzee hunting" in a Facebook post.  Since I'm interested in every kind of hunting, I just had to ask what Munzee hunting was all about.  My friend let me know that it was a scavenger hunt game, similar to geocaching, played through an app on your smart phone.  Instead of hiding a "cache" for the next hunter to find you hide a game piece with a QR code printed on it.

Once that game piece has been deployed it will show up on the game map for all the other players to view.  As a player the pieces that I haven't captured show up as Green balloons, and the pieces that I have captured show up as Red balloons.

As you can see from the screen shot of my cell phone there are plenty of pieces around, and a lot of places to visit.  Some of them are kind of silly.  Just yesterday I followed the map to a game piece on the back of a Handicapped Parking sign in a random parking lot of some shop in an industrial park.  Okay, so I didn't know the industrial park was quite that big, but I also didn't find anything geographically new or interesting. 

However, most of the pieces are typically placed in a location that is maybe a bit out of the way, or takes you to part of a park you hadn't visited before.  For example: Yesterday I was out for a drive with my youngest son, Aiden.  We ended up at Drake's Well Museum, partly because I hadn't been to Oil Creek State Park in years, and partly because I found two game pieces on the map.  I parked near the the first game piece and told Aiden, "We find stickers!"  He got excited and nearly leapt out of the Explorer.  We followed a bicycle trail and quickly found the first game piece on the back side of a guard rail near an old steel bridge.  Looking at the map there was a second piece within a reasonable walk, so we continued down the driveway.  Unfortunately the second piece couldn't be located.  And this happens.  We are talking about laminated pieces of paper stuck to metal, outdoors, so as weather is apt to do, pieces get worn away.  The great part about this game being driven by an app on your smart phone is I can add a "Journal Entry" that the piece may be missing.  The original player that deployed the piece will receive an e-mail, and that person can investigate it further. 

Since it is a game, their are points.  Points for putting pieces out.  Points for finding pieces.  Points for when people find your pieces.  As you earn points you increase in level, but more importantly you gain a great satisfaction to see your map turn from green to red!!

Reading along the website, there's even a business reward aspect that can be involved.  While I haven't seen this locally, a business can place a Munzee game piece on their door, and reward customers for every 3rd, 5th, etc... visit to their store.  Since I love exploring and finding new places I think this is a tremendously interesting way to drive customers to your business and reward their loyalty.  Like a Foursquare check in, with a real reason!

Looking at the map the trend seems to be more toward urban areas, and some rural areas slightly off the beaten path.  As the game grows I really hope to find more and more pieces popping up in secluded and more wooded areas.  Seeing a piece on part of the map that you don't immediately recognize would be tremendously exciting.  Who knows, perhaps that place will be your new favorite picnic area.

If you have a smart phone, and like getting out and finding new places, I would highly recommend downloading the app and locating a couple game pieces.  It's endlessly addicting!!

Happy Exploring
Scott M

January Gear Review: Ice Fishing

I spent some time at FishUSA.com's headquarters talking Ice Fishing gear. Check out my article and video for more information,

Gear up for ice fishing | GoErie.com/Erie Times-News

While the weather has turned here on the North Coast, they're colder days in the forecast. So we still have a chance at some hard water action.

Happy Fishing
Scott M

The weather...

Recovering from one of the worst sinus/ear infections I've ever had, I'm sitting here watching the snow melt in my backyard.  Checking the calendar, and yep it's still January.  My infection induced coma didn't result in me sleeping through to spring.  Watching this mid winter heat wave destroy our snow pack I can't help but think of how dependent outdoorsmen are on the weather.

To hot:  nothing moves
To cold:  nothing moves
Precipitation falling:  nothing moves

Catch the weather just right...  Wow! You will see action like you won't believe. 

January on the Great Lakes is ice fishing season.  Streams are mostly clear, but at these water temps getting steelhead to take your bait is about as difficult as keeping my 2 year old from demolishing his toys.  Technically archery season remains open, but this far north only the hardiest of souls venture to their treestands.  Small game is in, and this is actually the best time of year if you're looking for a large bushytail for a trophy mount, but again mid January weather leaves a lot to be desired. 

So what's an outdoorsman to do?  Ice fishing season will be heating up, if you'll pardon the pun.  I personally had a hard time understanding the attraction that hard water fisherman have to the sport.  After all in order for the sport to be productive you need the weather to really turn to a proper cold spell.  However, a few years back my best friend and I scrounged up some equipment, dumped it into a bucket, and headed out onto the now frozen waters of Presque Isle Bay.  "Scrounged up"  In all honesty I bought my Schooley's Spring Bobber on my way to the bay.  That plus a couple 1/2 ounce jigheads in fuchsia and chartreuse, and a dozen minnows.  Our very first trip we didn't even have an auger.  The game plan was to find holes that others had abandoned early that day or last night, then chip them back open with an assortment of flathead screwdrivers we had brought.  What a sight we must have been!

Several hours later we actually had each hooked into 2 dozen sun fish, and a handful of perch.  The sun fish weren't big enough to bother with, so back down the hole they went, but the perch made for a couple of fine sandwiches.

Since that trip we have gone out a couple times, and each upgraded our gear several times as well. 

The bay never froze last year, and up until the last several day, it looked like it would freeze up this year.  In fact a few brave souls have already ventured out.  For my taste I prefer 5 inches of ice or better.  I'm not starving to death without that fish, so no reason to get crazy about rushing onto thin ice.

With some simple gear any outdoorsman can find hours of entertainment and sport during any time of year.  Even in the depth of winter

Happy Fishing
Scott M

A good hike

There's a saying about golf that "golf is a good walk ruined."

I can identify with this, because as much as I love to hunt, I love to hike too.  So I'm sure more than one of my hunts has been ruined by my wanderlust pulling me out of a treestand.

That's okay really because I really do just love to explore a new area.  How else would I stumble upon bear and coyote tracks within 100 yards of each other:

It's a rare sight for me to see a black bear in the areas I hunt, and I've never seen a coyote in the wild, so to find both these tracks reminded me that I'm not the only hunter in the woods today. 

So I think it's only natural for me to plan our family vacations around hiking destinations.

Yes I'm aware it's January, but really is there a better time to plan vacations?  Most of us in the northern tier are stuck indoors most of the day, and I don't think there's a better time to browse maps and websites for places to camp.  Plus, if you find yourself totally enamored with an area, you can reserve your spot before the seasonal rush, and guarantee your plans.

With that in mind I've been studying a couple spots in the Allegheny National Forest.  My mother's family has owned a cabin near the outskirts of the ANF for almost 50 years.  For the last 2 years this camp has served as a basecamp for my family to explore the ANF.  Our youngest will turn 3 this summer, and our oldest 8, so we finally feel like we are able to effectively wrangle them, in order to do some tent or camper camping.

Since we have already done some regular exploring at Heart's Content Scenic Area we are going to try out the campsite just a few hundred yards down the road.  Heart's Content is one of the largest tracks of virgin timber east of the Mississippi.  It has never been cut, and therefore the forest exists in its pure natural state.  White pines grow to enormous proportions, until they are toppled in a wind storm.  The ground consumes the fallen timber and the opening in the canopy releases long dormant seeds from the ground.  It's an amazing place.

The campsite butts up against the Hickory Creek Wilderness Area.  The Hickory Creek area was one of the first area protected under the Wilderness Act of 1964.  Howard Zahniser, the author and champion of the Wilderness Act wrote: 

“A wilderness, in contrast with those areas where man and his own works dominate the landscape, is hereby recognized as an area where the earth and community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain.”

Heart's Content campground can access the Hickory Creek trail, which links through the woods to the Wheeler trail, which will arrive at Heart's Content interpretive trail.  The next length of the Wheeler trail wraps below the campground and with a little off trail brush busting we should be able to arrive at our campsite.

Later in the summer we'll travel to the northern arm of the Kinzua Reservoir.  Last summer we rented a cabin for one night at Willowbay Campground, which is the only Federally controlled campground with cabins to rent.  All other campgrounds with cabins are privately owned.  This was a really nice stay where shortly after unpacking we were visited by a flock of turkey including young of the year.  And the view was just phenomenal looking out over the reservoir.

While finding our way to Willowbay we came across another ANF campground called Tracy's Ridge.  Since there were no cabins there, we didn't stay, but the brochure showed us the extensive trail system.  There's the Land of Many Uses interpretive trail, which links to both the Tracy ridge trail and the Johnnycake trail.  Both of those trails link up to a length of the North Country Scenic trail.

The North Country Scenic trail will someday be the longest footpath in North America stretching 4600 miles from upper New York to North Dakota.  Of that proposed route, 2100 miles have been certified, with some of the most well developed portions of the path being in Pennsylvania.  We explored a couple trailheads last year, and I'd be lying to say I'm not just a little bit obsessed with this trail.  Judging from the map I believe a through hike of the PA portion would be possible in under 4 days, but for a distance of that size I wouldn't want to push too tight of a schedule. 

So much land to explore, makes surfing the internet in January so exciting.

Happy Exploring
Scott M

It really is all about the brine.

In keeping with this week's theme of cooking particularly long and involved recipes, let's take a look at the smoked turkey breast I prepared for our Christmas feast. 

If you have never smoked a meat or are fairly new to the process, I would very strongly suggest getting comfortable with the idea of brining meat.  Brining meat is actually quite an old process, and can be done with any whole muscle cut of meat.  Not to be confused with marinading, where the goal is to infuse flavor directly into the meat, the goal of brining is to increase the moisture content of the meat.  The addition of flavor can be a natural by-product of this process, but doesn't really have to be.

I actually started off with a whole turkey because pre-Thanksgiving turkey prices are amazing.  Since we were already having quite a bit of meat I decided to cut the wings, legs and thighs off the body, and save those for chicken and biscuits later on.  Now this beast looks like any other plain turkey breast you would purchase at the store.

Time to prepare the brine.

Just as it sounds this should be a salty solution.  Aside from the salt you can add any number of fresh or dried herbs to the liquid.  Just remember that unlike a marinade these herbs will not necessarily add a noticeable flavor to the meat.  So what will the brine do?  The salty water will create an increase in the osmotic pressure on the meat cells.  In English?  Sure.  Remember 10th grade biology?  Bodies are collection of microscopic cells.  In this case turkey breast meat, cells.  Salty water causes the cells to expand, and in order to expand they have to draw in water from their surroundings.  In this case that water is your brining solution.  So what the brine is doing is forcing the cells of the breast meat to hold more fluid than they naturally would.  Therefore, once you begin the cooking, or in this case the smoking process, the meat will take much longer to dry out.  Leaving you with a fully cooked meat product that is succulent and juicy.

I like to keep my brining solution simple.  Approximately 1/2 cup of salt into about 1/2 quart of water.  Heat to boiling in order to dissolve all of the salt.  Don't worry about that being too salty, because in order to brine a turkey of that size you'll be adding at least another gallon of water to the vessel.  This time around I also added about 3 tbsp of lemon juice, one branch of rosemary and a dozen peppercorns.  This all fit nicely into a 3 gallon ceramic crock I own, and Erie's weather cooperated with a cool 33 degree night, so the whole mix sat on the back porch for 12 hours.

After the 12 hour soak, I removed the bird, and allowed it to rest while I got the smoker up to temp.  275 degrees over pecan wood would make for a nice low and slow smoking process.  Still looking for an internal temp of 165 like any poultry product and this time the bird road in the smoker for about 5 hours.

The smoked meat then rested in the refrigerator for another 18 hours before I sliced it off the bone and ran it through my meat slicer.  As you can see from the results above I was left with a delicious deli style sliced turkey breast, perfect to eat alone, or in a sandwich.

Brining is an extra step, but it will pay enormous dividends at the end.  And don't stop at smoked meats.  Next time you are going to oven roast a turkey, brine that bird as well.  Your guests will love you for it.

Happy Cooking
Scott M