The RoVing Coles: Catching Up

The rainy weather continued. We had a Craft Fair/Flea Market scheduled here at the campground on Saturday, June 20th. Four brave souls set up tables, two were outside. Those two packed up and left fairly early because of the rain. The two others who were inside stayed the day, but I'm sure they had next to no traffic. It rained all day. I had to work most of the day and it was really quiet in the store. No surprise with the crappy weather.

But things started looking up on the following Monday. We actually had sun! So Julian and I headed out to Lackawanna State Park. It wasn't an obvious choice for future fishing, but it sure was pretty.

It was still early so we set course for Gouldsboro State Park. We stopped for Burger King on the way and had our lunch at the park.

We drove around and finally found a good area where we could do some fishing if we wanted - in the future, we didn't have our gear with us on the reconnaissance mission.

Since it was right next door, we drove to Tobyhanna State Park. The two parks are separated by a railroad easement. We didn't take any pictures at Tobyhanna. Most of the park was closed off and the open area wasn't what we were looking for either. But I have to say that all the state parks here are beautifully kept.

Julian talked at length with a guy at the Craft Fair who told him about a couple of trout fishing streams. So Tuesday, we decided to go see if we could find them. As we were driving past John's house, Julian saw he was outside. We went up his drive to talk to him about the streams and he was kind enough to draw us a great map.

We were off and found the first one, Moss Hollow Creek to the east of Hamlin. This was a beautiful drive and the creek was great, too. To the left of this picture was a private residence with a huge lawn. It was really pretty.

Aside: One thing I've missed here in the Poconos is a beautiful view. Most mountain areas we've been in afford great views, pull-outs, overlooks, etc. We hadn't seen anything like this and could never see past the trees. On this day, it became evident that, at least in part, the lack of views had been caused by the bad weather. There is always clouds and fog along with all this rain. Well, today that was not the case and we could really see a lot. Beautiful vistas that included green meadows and lots of hills and trees. It was great. We've experienced more views as we've traveled since, too. I'm so glad!

So after scouting this out, we headed towards Wallenpaupack Creek, southwest of Hamlin. This is the waterfall near the road where we parked.

We were able to walk up one side of the creek and back on the other. It was absolutely gorgeous back in there. This picture was taken looking back across the creek after we had crossed over the foot bridge. Someone actually lives back there - the lucky stiffs!

Since this scouting trip, Julian has been back there a couple of times. In fact, that's where he is as I write this. Hope he's catching lots of trout!

On Wednesday the weather was still really nice. We took off for Lehighton and a farmers market. We are trying to find fried peas and often find them at markets like that. However, we've been stymied everywhere we've looked since being in PA. This market was particularly small and we didn't find much. We stopped for lunch and then drove through the town of Jim Thorpe. What a quaint and cool place that was! For unknown reasons we did not take any photos, but I hope to go back again and then we will.

That seemed to be the end of our good weather. Rain has fallen, at least a little bit, every day since. In fact we had a nasty storm a few nights ago with very high winds. Yesterday brought another storm warning with potential for hail. I feel like we're in the Twilight Zone with all this unseasonable weather.

I took a walk around our campground the other day - while we had a little sun. I ran into a goose convention. I'll tell you: you really have to watch where you walk around here - droppings everywhere!