The Best Swimming Hole In The Country? (and some links)

According to Phineas and Ferb, there are 104 days of summer vacation.  I haven’t taken the time to count them.  I trust Phineas.  I have always lived in a climate with seasons, so these days are valuable.  Carlos Castaneda said in one of his books, “There is one simple thing wrong with you – you think you have plenty of time …”  Then he went on to say a bunch of other goofy stuff, and to hole up in a house with three women who cut themselves from their families, and then he founded some kind of phony religion.  Don’t let that distract you from the truth of the quote, though.  He may have been nuts, but you know what they say about blind squirrels,,,,,,,,, they are way more likely to get hit by cars.

I saw leaves from the big oak tree in my front yard on the ground last week, and I almost had a conniption.  Winter is coming.  We needed to do something very summery, stat.  I knew that the Perseid meteor shower was peaking later in the week.  I also knew that there was a state park in north central Pennsylvania that was famous for its dark skies and its star gazing.  I looked at my boys and said. “We’re going camping Thursday night.”  Of course, they totally ignored me because they were playing video games.  I then started packing.

This was going to be a fast trip, but I figured that we had time to check off one more item on the list of things you can only do in summertime.  In Loyalsock State forest, there is a mountain stream that Backpacker Magazine claims has some of the best swimming holes in the U.S.  This also sounded doable.

Thursday morning I told the boys to get in the car, because we were going on a camping adventure.  One of them looked at me, “We’re going camping?”  I informed them that this was an electronics free trip and told them to grab some books, and off we went.  Cherry Springs State Park is roughly a four hour drive.  We got there in early afternoon, only to find the campsite full.  Five miles away is another park.  Also full.  Apparently there are some people who take their star gazing quite seriously.  They had planned their trips more than 48 hours in advance.  So, 25 miles later we pulled into Colton Point State Park, on the rim of Pine Creek Gorge, which is sometimes referred to as the Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania.  We took one ride through the uncrowded campground loop, to pick a campsite, and to see if there was anyone already camping there who looked like they may be a serial killer.  There was a nice site available that was far enough away from the most serial killery looking of our fellow campers.  After dinner and Smores we sat by the fire and waited for dark.  Around ten o’clock, we walked over to a field that had been cleared for group camping.  The sky was dark and full of stars.  The Milky Way was visible with the naked eye.  We sat there looking up at the stars until we had each seen a meteor.  Time for bed.

After a quick breakfast, we broke camp, took in the views of the gorge from several overlooks, and headed for our next adventure. I stopped when I found some cell service and texted my wife to let her know that we had not yet gotten into significant trouble.  An hour later, we pulled into the state forest on a gravel road.  After about two miles and some help, we found the swimming hole I was looking for.  Backpacker magazine was right.  It was definitely one of the best swimming holes I had ever been to.  It was deep and surrounded by rocks and steep banks that you could jump from.  It was also freaking freezing.  I figured that it was going to be cold, but the first time I jumped in, my breath caught, and my whole body hurt.  The kids hadn’t been in yet, so they were still stoked.  I looked at my five year old standing there in his life vest and said, “buddy it’s really………”   Before I could finish my sentence he was in the water.  I jumped in after him and we both climbed out together.  He looked at me angrily (it doesn’t take much to make him angry), “dad, this place is the worst, it’s too cold.”  So, I wrapped him in a towel and watched as my ten year old finally jumped in.  When he surfaced, he made a couple of noises that I found completely hilarious as he swam towards the exit of the pool like Michael Phelps.  He got up the nerve to jump in a few more times.  Then we changed into dry clothes on bank of the mountain stream and headed out of the forest and towards home.

If I’m lucky, I will have ninety some odd summers to enjoy.  I have to eliminate the first five because I don’t remember them.  I probably have to eliminate the last ten because I’ll be too worried about breaking a hip to try anything really cool.  That leaves about seventy five summers in between.  At my age, I’m looking at less than fifty awesome summers to go.  In Phineas and Ferb math, that comes out to like 4,888 days of summer vacation.  When I count the summers that I will get to spend with my kids when they are young, that number gets significantly smaller still.  So, however crazy Mr. Castaneda may have been, he’s right about time, and I’m doing my best to keep that in the back of my mind.  Each day of summer, I try to wake up stoked, and say, “boys, I know what we’re gonna do today.”

LINKS

• Winners of the National Geographic Travel photo contest.  Pretty spectacular.
• Remember that famous kiss photo from LIFE magazine at the end of World War II.  There was recently a mass reenactment to celebrate its 70th anniversary.
• A man dressed in a bear costume started messing with a mother bear and two cubs in Alaska, and no one knew what to do about it.
• Bear Grylls explains why your kids need to be exposed to risk.