Camping at Otter Lake

We just returned from a weekend camping trip to the Pennsylvania Pocono Mountains – what a wonderful weekend! We stayed at Otter Lake Camping Resort which was great. The campground is really tucked away in the woods – very secluded and close to nature. In fact, the whole weekend was full of nature! We saw a wild bear very close to our campground and I managed to get a picture:

I was more freaked out by the bear than the kids were! I had never seen a real, live, wild bear outside of a zoo before.

It was also apparently a time of the year when caterpillars drop from the trees by the millions. Don’t believe me? Check out this rock at our campsite:

Those little squirmy things? Caterpillars. They covered EVERYTHING – the ground, the rocks, the trees…and by the time we left this morning, our truck and camper, too. If you sat outside by the fire even for a few minutes, you could count on one or two caterpillars falling onto you whenever a slight breeze went by and shook the leaves above. At one point, Mike was so freaked out by a caterpillar landing on his hand that he flipped his wrist over and spilled his drink (a waste of a perfectly good margarita!). But I guess it’s better that they were caterpillars and not spiders or some other creepy, crawlies…right?

And of course, Daisy, our goldendoodle, had lots of them and other stuff caught in her fur all weekend. It was really hot and humid during the day yesterday, so the kids took turns squirting Daisy with their water pistols. But don’t feel bad for the dog – she LOVED it and followed Matt around until he squirted her.

Then she would bite and chew at the water – it was really funny to watch! Funny, that is, until we had a wet dog rolling around in the dirt…

So, even though it’s not supposed to be good for her fur, I just HAD to give her a bath when we got home. It’s amazing how little dog is under all that fluffy fur…

The dog was exhausted after our trip! On Saturday afternoon, she, Matt and I hiked for about 4 miles all the way around Otter Lake. At one point during our hike, she just plopped down on the ground and refused to go any further – what happened to all that puppy energy!?!

Matt, Emily and I also managed to go swimming in the lake for a little bit – it was really nice…

Unfortunately, soon after this photo was taken, we heard thunder and left the beach. It seemed that thunderstorms were popping up right overhead for most of the afternoon. You know it’s not a Torrence camping trip unless it rains, right?