Poconos, PA

Delaware Water Gap

I have always been curious about the Poconos, Catskills and Adirondacks, which are all names of mountain sections of what we call the Blue Ridge Mountains or Shenandoah Mountains in Virginia.  It appears that the Appellation Mountain chain is called something different in every region.  The scenic route from the DC area to Montreal passes through or by each of these 3 mountain regions that are resort areas for the metropolitan regions along the coast (95 corridor).  We have no idea what to expect and there aren't really any specific destination points, so we are just going to drive up through them and see what happens.  We spent most of this day driving, as the desire to stop and explore increases the further you get away from home base.  We figure that anything that is less than 4 hours drive from the farm is suitable for a long weekend excursion.  The Poconos are situated in Pennsylvania, but right along the New Jersey state line, so even though we were still in PA, we got to experience a little slice of the New Jersey population.  Need I say more?  We drove up through the Delaware Water Gap region of the Poconos, which is a 400 million year-old erosion feature where the Delaware River pushed against some weak rock in the Appellation Mountains and created a wide valley where the water slows and widens significantly for a stretch of a couple hundred miles, then narrows back down and increases speed as it approaches George Washington's famous Delaware River crossing just downstream.  The whole region is now a National Recreation Area after the Government pushed out 15,000 residents via the powers of eminent domain in order to build a dam, flood the valley and create a reservoir that never materialized some 50 years ago.  We ended up at the KOA because there are nearly no official camp grounds in the Poconos, and full hook ups seemed

Silver Thread Falls, Delaware Water Gap

 attractive.  When we arrived for check-in, we were advised that the Water Wagon Hay Ride was about to commence and if we didn't want to be pummeled by water cannons each time it passed our campsite, we should be sure to remain indoors.  You can imagine Mike's unpleasant reaction as we drive the RV and Jeep that he just spent 4 hours washing the day before past the water cannon brigade (15 twelve-year-old Jersey boys) all firing off at our RV and Jeep prematurely...wasn't a pretty sight.  Luckily we were just starting our set-up operation when they started their insane idea of Poconos camping fun, so we were able to avoid the actual hosing as they passed by 3 or 4 times.  Mike pointed out how curious it was that they start training Jersey kids so early on the fine art of drive-by-shooting, and we wondered collectively what the next street-survival activity might be in this for this secret KOA training camp.  Thankfully some major all-night thunder storms arrived that drove the massive hordes of pre-teen kids into their tents and held them there all night and into the next day.