Tuesday, October 9, 2012 - Runaround Day in Carmel, NY

Since we didn’t have a cell phone or internet signal here, and I had to run into town to the post office and grocery store anyway, I found a wi-fi signal at Friendly’s and did some computer work. Unfortunately, what started out as an effort to get a few simple confirmations of my planned route turned into a nightmare. Everywhere I called it was No, No, No! Even publicly designated Pa Game Land prohibited overnight camping of any kind! I never heard of such a thing! Anyway, I ended up spending hours there trying to solve the problem, and in the end, didn’t really solve it, except to find one tiny spot along the side of a highway that didn’t have any trails. Time to rethink the whole thing, so I came back to camp frustrated that it was now too late to ride, and we had more logistics problems than we had before I went to town. After considerable discussion, and a slew of alternatives, we finally settled on driving straight through to the Michaux State Forest (if it could be confirmed, though all indications are they welcome horse camping-I even had previously downloaded a brochure about it), which is just a little west of Gettysburg. There are no fees, though no facilities, but knowing that, we can arrive prepared. Too late to ride, so we just settled in, though I had several conversations with the two hunters that keep coming back, Nick and Dominic. Dominic even brought a couple of ladies who live nearby and have horses to visit with us, so we had a nice chat for a while. He also gave us some apples, a loaf of hefty bread, which we discovered later with soup was a nic sun-dried tomato bread, and a bag of nice Italian rolls, very thoughtful of them. Forecast calls for just a 20-30 percent chance of rain for tomorrow, hope it doesn’t, I’d sure like to get at least ONE ride in while we’re here!