OK, here goes.
Saturday after breakfast at a nice little cafe in Wellsboro, we rode to a town called Forksville and to nearby Worlds End State Park. About a 1-1/2 hour ride. Sorry no pics of the covered bridge we rode through or the state park. On the return, I told the guys I wanted to take a detour to a place that is special to me. In 2013 I led my Boy Scouts with son Max, and again in 2016 with Max and Noah, for a week of scout camp at nearby Camp Brule. In 2019, the BSA closed the camp and I wasn’t sure what became of it.
The Dirty Bird parked opposite- Justin rode past us and turned around. I said that’s fine, keep pointed that way, as I intended to take us down a dirt road in that direction to see something else. As I was reminiscing, telling the guys about the great times I had with my boys at this once great camp, a young man who had obviously been working on some machinery from the grease on his hands and day-glo green t-shirt walked up the road from his house to meet us. I knew that the house had previously been occupied by the caretaker/groundskeeper of the camp.
He greeted us, asking if we were alright, not sure why 3 motorcyclists would be parked here. I assured him we were fine and asked if he was the caretaker- he is. I told him about my history at the camp and inquired about its current ownership. He explained that the camp was sold to a private investor who was not currently doing anything with the property other than maintaining it for some possible future use. Said his family had been the caretakers of the property for many years and the new owner kept him on. So this young man, wife and child were able to stay in the very nice house, cut the grass, maintain the buildings, etc for free. He worked from home in a tech field. He allowed u to go beyond the cable blocking the entrance and walk down to the lake- the central defining feature of the property. We thanked him and walked around a bit. This is what it looks like now.
This is what it looked like as an active Scout camp. Mix of pics from 2013 & 2016
After we left the camp, I led the guys a mile or so down a dirt road. These roads are well maintained and extremely busy at times with trucks as the connect a few natural gas fracking facilities. No traffic at all on this day. My first year at the camp I went for a walk down this road and discovered the waterfall. During camp there can be periods of time where the kids are all at their merit badge classes, and unless my kid was doing something active like swimming, lifesaving, boating, shooting, etc. I didn’t bother hanging around for the classroom type badges. On numerous occasions I visited the waterfall to photograph it, sit in quiet solitude, or read. And I kept it a secret.
This is a pic of the same waterfall on my first visit in 2013. There was quite a bit more water flow, almost all the way across.
In 2016, it was barely a trickle, not worth posting pics.
It was really nice to share all of this with the guys. I think they appreciated what it meant to me.
The pic of my GS750 and Eli69's BMW are from Sunday morning. Justin got up, packed up and rolled out before dawn for the 6+ hour ride back to Vermont. It was Father's Day after all, and he had a sweet little girl waiting for him at home. I saw him off but went back to my tent to get a few more hours' sleep. After we got up, farted around, made coffee, ate a bit and broke camp, we rolled out about 9:30am. Eli wanted to try to find the top of the nearly vertical hill that defines the western border of the campground. We found a road that went up that way but it didn't go anywhere where we could get a good shot of the valley below. So we shot the bikes at place that still showed a bit of a scenic overlook for the Pic of the Week game.
so, as Paul Harvey said, “And now you know….the rest of the story.