This past weekend I went to the Geeknic++ Northeast US over at Jenny Jump State Forest.
First, the obligatory fire and s’more photos! I ate like a half dozen s’mores, yum yum.
I headed out shortly after work on Friday and arrived at the group site around 7PM and scoped out the place before the rest of the campers arrived. The site was great, as was the whole campground. Sites were spread out so that campers weren’t on top of each other, the facilities were spaced out reasonably, and in spite of getting slightly lost upon entry, I was able to find the spot and then direct people via phone, twitter and SMS once they got to the campground (note to self: make sure everyone has my cellphone number next time!).
The campground was not too far from the Delaware Water Gap so the location itself was great too. We had folks come up from Philadelphia, from New Jersey, and a whole crew come down from the Long Island Linux Users Group who we worked with to plan everything. Plus, it was very close to I-80 so we had cellphone reception – which was good for me since I was sort of on-call this past weekend (emergencies only!).
The hits of the camping trip? Bears and Jonathan’s over-the-campfire grilled cheese maker, as seen in the photo below. We didn’t get to see any bears, of course, but the “Bear Country” signs on the tables and the bear-resistant food storage container made the ongoing theme of bear alerts and bear teleportation (well, we’re geeks!) pervade the weekend. The grilled cheese maker was a simple $10 grill tool that you put some cooking spray, a couple slices of bread and some cheese inside and roasted over the fire to make the most amazing grilled cheese sandwiches ever. We started eating them Friday night, and made several more on Saturday for lunch. Yum!
After lunch on Saturday, four of us got together and headed up the Summit Trail to check out the view from the summit of one of the hills (mountains?) that the forest was situated on. It was a fun hike, pretty easy and less than 3 miles so the 8 year old who came along for the hike was doing ok for most of it, even if he did fade a bit toward the end. Upon return to the campground we all chilled out for a bit and then made dinner early in preparation for the rain scheduled to hit in the early evening.
At 8PM we headed up to the United Astronomy Clubs of NJ’s Observatory there at Jenny Jump Forest. It was drizzling a bit at this point and of course far too cloudy to see out their telescope, but they host an astronomy club meeting every Saturday night there which is open to the public. About a dozen of us showed up for their interesting presentation on space colonization, and got to learn about the cool plans they have for a huge telescope they’re getting installed and a radio telescope they’re breaking ground for. It was a fascinating evening with those folks, and we couldn’t have planned a more on-theme event for a bunch of camping geeks.
The rain had started by the time the astronomy meeting had ended and we headed back to the campground to hide under our umbrellas and the makeshift shelter that a couple of the guys put up earlier in the evening (there was much teasing as they put it up with fishing line and spare rope, but it was quite a useful shelter when completed!). I turned in before 11, not sure how late others stayed up, but the campfire was built up enough before the rain that survived at least until people were heading off to bed. The rain lasted through most of the night, but by morning the sun had come out and started to dry all our wet tents (and some wet sleeping bags!).
Sunday morning we all packed up and headed our own ways. Total count for the event was 22 people! S’mores were enjoyed! No one was eaten by a bear! Geeknic++ success! Next year we might host it over a long weekend though, two nights and only one full day wasn’t enough :)
Check out more photos over at my flickr gallery:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/pleia2/sets/72157621268144001/
And fellow camper Andrew also uploaded a whole bunch to his site:
Friday, Jul 17th, 2009 at 6:24
Looks like it was a good camp out, shame that the rain spoilt or rather dampened (tada) the last night….