Limekiln & Harris Lakes; Moose River 8/7/13 – 8/14/13

This year’s annual camping trip with Adam & Jacqui and Kaden took us to new places.  Our first night was spent at Limekiln Lake Campgrounds, just outside of Moose River Wild Forest.  We had a spot near the water, and had to keep a constant eye on Kaden, who is two years old and into everything.  He is a very busy little guy, and moves quicker than expected!  The site was nice and roomy, plenty big enough for all of us to share.  Adam & Jacqui rented a pop-up camper for the weekend; we used our regular tent for the single overnight, as it sets up and tears down pretty quickly.

The next morning we were off to Lake Harris Campground on Harris Lake… not sure why the wording is inconsistent, but that’s the way it all shows up on the map.  This was quite a nice campground, although the two sites we had reserved weren’t that great.  They were tiny and cramped together in a row of several sites directly on the bank of the lake, which had a steep drop… a concern with a toddler running about.  There was hardly enough room for a vehicle at each site, let alone the pop-up camper… and forget about privacy.  The person at the gate was very accommodating and let us pick from the other sites that were available for the weekend.

We took non-adjacent sites, but we were only a few minutes of walking distance apart.  Both sites were spacious enough and a little more private.  We got our sites set up, and then got busy enjoying the surroundings.  Ken and I spent quite a bit of time at Adam & Jacqui’s site, helping a little here and there, and just hanging out talking & relaxing… and eating.  Jacqui and I were anxious to take pictures, and their site was across from the boat launch, so we had good access to a nice view of the lake.

Apparently during the first night we had a big thunderstorm which I didn’t hear any of.  It proceeded to rain the next day off and on, so we drove over to Lake Placid for something to do.  The drive was beautiful even with the clouds and mist.  The first order of business was to find food because we are always hungry, so we stopped for lunch at an Italian restaurant in town.  After lunch we went to the Olympic Training Center and looked around briefly, then headed over to the Olympic Ski Jumps. 

What a cool place!  There were some athletes training on the jumps, and we got to see a couple of them do their thing.  It was pretty neat to be right next to the jump as they went flying past, and to hear the sound of the wind coming off of them!  Rather than explain how this works in the summertime, I’ve included pictures in the album for this trip which will explain all that.  The link to the album will be at the end of this post as usual.  I also took video which you can see right here.

We did have a gorgeous sunset that evening.  Jacqui and I were very busy with our cameras.

The weather cleared up for the third day.  Temperatures were cool for the time of year, but the sun was out and it was very pleasant.  We hung around the campsite for a bit, Ken made some adjustments on our new CB radio, and I took some pictures of weird stuff and relaxed in the sun. 

Adam & Jacqui went for a bike ride with a carriage-like thing attached to Adam’s bike for Kaden to ride in.  Later we all went down to the water for a bit, then ate and hung out most of the rest of the time, keeping busy watching Kaden and messing with the dogs. 

In the morning we packed up and went back to Syracuse, refreshed our supplies, did some laundry and prepared for the next day’s travels.

Monday morning we set out for Moose River.  The Amy & Dan Clan went a day early and were already there.  They took the same site as last year, and partially occupied our site from last year for us in case we wanted it again.  This was wonderful – we really liked that site, and we were thankful to have it again.  However, we did have to clean up the site from the people before us.  They left plastic bottles and other food-related & non-combustible trash in the fire pit and on the picnic table, spilled grease on the table and didn’t clean it, and crapped in the bushes in numerous places without bothering to bury it.  They were at least civilized enough to use toilet paper, which served as locator beacons for all the piles Ken had to cover with ashes from the fire pit.  He scrubbed down the table with soapy water and I fetched a few rounds of rinse water for him.  We picked up their trash and the site was back to how it should have been.  We’ve never encountered a site left in such terrible condition before.  Most people are pretty respectful and leave the sites how they would want to find them.

We hooked up my laptop to the inverter which connects to the secondary battery in the Jeep, and watched a movie the first night until we got tired.  We drained that battery (not the main one) down to nothing and it wouldn’t charge back up, which pointed to the isolator switch malfunctioning.  We’ll be having that replaced, and it is still under warranty.

Most of our activity was based on trying to stay dry while it rained sporadically for the duration of our stay.  We took a couple of rides in the area, but didn’t do any exploring on foot. 

There was also a brief target practice session on one afternoon, and of course an exchanging of weapons with each other.  It’s always fun to try out a friend’s firearm and compare notes!

Oddly, it didn’t rain during the evening, so we hung out at Amy & Dan’s campsite each night chatting by the fire.  They had a great fire going each night, fueled by downed wood gathered earlier by Ken and Dan.

All of us did end up leaving a day earlier than planned due to the rain.  Better to pack up damp gear instead of soaked gear, especially if you have only one more day and no pressing activities planned. 

We still had to dry a few things out a bit when we got home, but we’ve had it much worse in the past.

Lots of great pictures from this trip:  Limekiln & Harris Lakes; Moose River 8/7/13 - 8/14/13