Waiting for Mom and Dad.....

East Stroudsburg, PA  High: 85  Low: 68

The kids got up, ate breakfast which was Grandma Sparky's specialty--homemade Egg Muffin sandwiches--Bay's English muffins, sliced cheese, Canadian bacon, and and beaten egg cooked in a little gadget that makes the egg fit perfectly on a round English muffin. Got it at Camping World. You could do the same thing in a custard dish, I suppose, but Sparky likes gadgets that make cooking a little more fun. (Now if she would just use HALF the gadgets she's gotten, we'd save a TON on eating out! There's that slicer and dicer we picked up at the Monday morning flea market in Webster, Fl., there's the---) Ah, yes, Sparky is not fond of cooking....But every once in awhile, she comes through with a nice meal. We actually have been eating at home more out of necessity, because everybody knows, eating out is a budget killer! Unless you work to find specials, share a meal, etc., which we do. But with the grandkids here, Sparky rose to the challenge and cooked a BUNCH!

Trevor and his Friendly's Vol-cono sundae

The kids worked on their blog, then waited anxiously for word when their mom and dad were going to arrive. Their parents were going to spend the night in Ohio, and had a TERRIBLE experience. They ended up having to leave their motel and drove all night. The kids have talked about Friendly's so much, the parents are interested in eating out there! Maybe another trip is in order this evening. A family of four can eat at Friendly's and have an entire meal, drinks and a nice dessert for under 30.00. The grandkids love Friendy's because of the ice cream. The food is decent, too.

Sparky and the kids have been walking the campgrounds every evening around dusk, watching for the deer. More campers have come in, and some noisy ones at that, so the deer are not as visible the last two days. But Sparky was out riding her bike last night, about twenty minutes before sunset, and came upon a doe, nursing her TWO fawns at the same time. Sparky almost missed it, but heard the slurping sounds of the young ones noisily feeding, looked over to her left and there they were right by the side of the road! The only camera she had was her iphone so the photo is fuzzy. But it was a special sight, and Sparky is glad she got to see it.

another sighting on another evening

We waited, and waited....Brian, Eldy's son, would text and tell us how far they were....Finally, here they were!

Cate and her dad

Tried to get a photo of Trevor hugging on his mom but everything all happened so fast! Trevor said, "Mommy, I am never letting go of you ever again!" And he clung to her like a monkey wrapped around a pole! The kids were wired...lots of catching up to do...

We headed over to the waterslide for one more family fun outing,

Brian--Eldy's son, and Eldy a.k.a. "Eldo"

then to Friendly's for one last favorite meal of burgers, ice cream and special drinks.

We did our last deer watching for the grandkids, and Trevor got very up close and personal with a doe! Some residents here put out corn for the deer...not supposed to, but they do. This particular campground has NO signs about not feeding the wildlife, so people think it's ok. One of the does lets you get within touching distance of her. Her skittish fawn wisely kept away....That was surprising to see that when the mother allowed human contact, the baby still stayed away...

"Papa, is this what they mean about 'deer in the headlights' look?" wonders Trevor....

We decided to have a campfire for everybody...Sparky hasn't had one in months! (FINALLY! We've been carrying wood around in the car and in the rig bay for a LONG time!) Sparky LOVES campfires and got out the rainbow sticks to add some color. These are cylinder tubes with chemicals that react with heat to make pretty colors. You can do the same thing with a piece of copper tubing placed inside a short cut up section of RUBBER hose and let the hose piece burn in the fire. The copper tubing is re-usable over and over. Cate and Trevor thought that was cool.

At 10:00 PM, it was time to call it a night...we said our goodbyes and the kids piled into the car to head back to their motel, they leave tomorrow morning for Indiana. It was great having the grandkids, but it was EXHAUSTING!  Tomorrow is a quiet day, a REALLY QUIET day..we'll get our laundry done, clean house, and plan our trip towards Bar Harbor, Maine, where Sparky is going to spend her 62nd birthday July 18th! IF--there's availability at the Encore park at Mt. Desert Narrows in Bar Harbor, so we'll see! Encore parks offer some good discounts to Thousand Trails members. We are going to stay at one Encore park for 99.00 a week, and the other one for 199.00 a week. More about that later....

The Zoo Was a Zoo!

Eldo is not crazy about zoos, but Sparky is, and so are the grandkids! Off to see Zoo America today in Hershey, PA. Sparky has not been to the zoo in YEARS, so she was just excited as the grandkids to see what this one was like. The zoo is right across the street from Hershey Park, the amusement park with the old fashioned roller wooden roller coasters along with many other rides. It looked like an average amusement park.....

There are discounts and bundled tickets available if you were going to both the amusement park and the zoo, but we just did the zoo today. The admission fees were reasonable, but it was a disappointment! Quite small....very limited selection of animals and very ordinary ones at that...white tailed deer, marmots, no monkeys, no giraffes, no lions.....The kids did get to see an elk, so that was nice.

You could see the zoo is making an attempt to open up some of the animal enclosures, but for the most part, lots of chain link enclosures, very small areas for the animals, and the general overall atmosphere of the zoo was just not very inviting. We've seen much nicer zoos in similar sized cities elsewhere in our travels.

However, the kids enjoyed the reptile house very much. They really spent a lot of time in there. Trevor wanted to go through it a second time. Sparky had had enough of snakes and bats so we moved on to see what animals were outside in the heat (high eighties). It was kind of sad to see this black bear trying to escape the heat by climbing into a metal tub with ice in it, especially since we had just seen a black bear in the wild a few days ago.

The zoo has some interesting facts for the kids to interact with, which was nice....Always great for them to learn new things and they did. There are interesting signs around the zoo that help you learn more about its history, like this one showing the zoo's first zoo keeper feeding the bears.

And signs showing you how big things are....

This is probably the closest any of us will ever get to a bald eagle, but you never know. While traveling, we've had some amazing close encounters with wildlife!

An eagle's wingspan....that's SIX FEET in each direction!

Sparky liked all the birdhouses made from gourds hanging in the pines....

And the porcupine...didn't realize how big they are! Hopefully, that's the closest we'll ever get to one! We were looking down on this one from a ledge up above....

After the zoo, we headed over to the Hershey Factory to get information for our tour tomorrow...We went ahead and did the free "factory" tour today which was a reproduction of the machinery in the factory demonstrating the chocolate making process. It was all we could do to get ourselves out of there without caving in to the candy store! Sparky told the kids "we need to bring a cooler" so the chocolate we buy doesn't melt in the heat" as the reason for not stocking up on candy today...heh, heh, heh.....

Papa and Trevor at Friendly's

Our last stop today was Friendly's....a hamburger/ice cream restaurant. We were pleasantly surprised that the four of us ate mac and cheese and hot dogs, 4 sodas, cheeseburger sliders, veggies and a regular burger w/fries PLUS four different kinds of ice cream sundae desserts all under 30.00. Good deal! Now everybody is sugared up for the rest of the evening! Settle down, Trevor! Papa! and Cate! Sparky is as calm as calm can be, despite eating this.......

Well, that sure was a fun day with the grandkids! Eldy, let's pick out the excursion package for the Hershey tour tomorrow! Let's take the kids down to the video room! What am I saying!!?? Eldo, want to take the kids down to the video game room for awhile? Wanna go for a swim, guys? Hey, why don't we see what's happening with the park activities tonight? There's freeze tag at the Rec Shed later today.. Wanna do the kick board races, kids, at 5:00? I think it would be great to go get some more ice cream tonight at the pool at 6:00, whaddya say, guys? (I say, time to cut Sparky off from any more sugar today. Whaddya say, guys? asks E.)