We got a late start because I was lazy and wouldn't get out of bed, so for a while Patrick was quite cantankerous. He had wanted to do some serious hiking that day, but since I decided not to get out of bed til about 10 am, his plans were foiled. We tried to make the best of the day anyway, but when signage at the Delaware Water Gap was pretty much the worst we've encountered at any NPS site, then Pat pulled a tendon in his calf that he'd pulled a few weeks ago and which was just starting to heal, it was shaping up to be a pretty lame day.
Since we'd gotten such a late start, however, by about 5:30 or 6 pm, we were still tooling around northeastern Pennsylvania and I said... "Do you want to just - not go home?"
We were in Pat's Jeep, which still had all his camping equipment in it. So he said, um, okay. So we drove up to New York and along the upper Delaware on the Upper Delaware Scenic Byway until we found the Ascalona Campground. What the campground is, basically, is the property of an older couple who had a bunch of prime land along the Delaware and decided to do something awesome with it.
By the time we got there, it was probably near 7 pm, and there was a sign on the main office (aka the proprietors' house) that if you wanted to camp, ring the doorbell if it was before 8 pm - or, if it was after 8 pm, just pitch your tent and register in the morning. We rang the bell, and a woman with a heavy European accent came out and greeted us. When we told her we were just driving around and unexpectedly decided to spend the night, she smiled and said that instead of $15 per person, she'd charge us $12. She told us to camp anywhere - the campground was completely empty, but there was a large party coming in the next day, so we had our pick that night.
We drove down to the campsite furthest away from the main building and pitched the tent. We didn't have service at the campground, so we drove a little ways back south on the byway til we got a bar. I called home and told my parents I wouldn't be home that evening and that I'd see them tomorrow. Done and done.
I'll talk a little bit more about camping when the pictures come up...
This is the monument at NJ's highest point, which also happens to be right near the northernmost point of the state too.
We really couldn't have asked for a better day, weather-wise.
34 more images below the jump - click any one to make it bigger in Photobucket.
