Wandering the West(ern portion of Wake County, NC)

[Foy]

My 33 year-old son and I are taking his 3-year old son, Billy the 5th, on his first overnight trip in "Pop's Wittle House" on Saturday night. We'll venture a good 8 miles from home base to Falls Lake State Recreation area, located on Raleigh's primary water source, 12,000 acre Falls Lake.

Activities will include hiking at least 150 yards between our reserved campsite and the sandy swimming beach/large playground, hiking to a bluff overlooking the lake, fishing with his new "Spiderman" spincast rod and reel, making mud pies by the lake shore, and throwing several hundred rocks and sticks into the lake. A small campfire will follow in the late afternoon/early evening.

Cuisine to include cheeseburgers, chips, and green salad, S'Mores for dessert, and link sausage + "panny cakes" for breakfast on Sunday.

While I don't figure to so much as lock the front hubs on the old Superduty, it should be a memorable couple of days and 1 night. We want to ease him into this gently to best assure he'll want to go again soon. We have our eyes on bringing the little fellow on a long weekend camped directly on the bank of the French Broad River at Hot Springs, NC, provided he "takes" to the experience on Saturday afternoon/night/Sunday morning. And if he "takes" to that, he'll be headed to Montana by the time he's 5 years old

Trip report with pics to follow.

Foy

 

[ACEBLACKDOG]

FUN THINGS ----

helping to build the fire...
holding a long stick in the fire and watching the end catch fire is fun for the little ones...also, an off-handed way to teach them about fire safety...
smores....let him toast his own marshmellow...
pancakes....use blueberries for a face...
be sure to take a few of his toys....
HAVE A GREAT ADVENTURE !!!

 

[ski3pin]

.....................................................

Trip report with pics to follow.

Foy

Promise?

 

[Foy]

Promise?

Yes, though I've "threatened" to post up a TR before and never followed through, this should be a classic, or at least a comedy of errors, and either way very much worth the effort.

Foy

 

[smlobx]

My wife and I spent the weekend near Mt. Rogers NRA and were thinking that in a couple of years (hopefully) we'll be doing exactly what you're about to.
Take plenty of picks!

Good times....

 

[longhorn1]

Foy, great fun ahead. Enjoy. jd

Sent from my SM-G900V using Wander The West mobile app

 

[Foy]

Tropical Storm Hermine's plans for Friday/Saturday have caused us to postpone until later in September. Stay tuned!

Foy

 

[ski3pin]

Foy, disappointing but the best call. Make sure it is a good time out there to get the little ones hooked.

We will wait for the photos and story.

Side note, a good friend (teaching colleague) is taking her daughter and her daughter - girls only, three generations - camping this weekend nearby to Silver Lake. Grandma is in heaven, even had three matching t-shirts made. We can't wait to see the photos!

 

[Foy]

Yep, part of living in hurricane country. The track forecasting has improved dramatically since our last "big'un" which was Hurricane Fran 20 years ago next week. We normally have a good 48 to 72 hours lead time of a very accurate estimate of wind speed and rainfall amounts. The outer bands reached us at 10:30 today and we're expected to have between 5" and 8" of rain over the next 24-30 hours and sustained winds up to 45 mph. So, the saturated soils and deciduous trees in fully leafed-out canopy makes for the possibility of a big dang mess overnight tonight. Pulling the truck and camper trailer and my wife's nice car up to an open shopping center parking lot later today, leaving only my beater truck (old Mazda B3000 2wd) at the house in reach of 80' tall oaks and hickories. Test fired both gennies, both are temporarily on the enclosed back porch in case of downed trees, 2 x 6 gallons of non-ethanol gennie fuel laid in, 2 x 2.5 gallons of chain saw fuel and a fresh gallon of bar oil laid in, freshly sharpened chain and second chain (brand new) laid in, 4 x 7 gallon Reliance water cubes filled. Bring it on, Hermine! We're ready!