Gap-tion Packed Day Along the Delaware River

Nothing like a pun that is both forced and terrible to get your attention.

Molly was the first to stir this morning at about 6:45. That's pretty wild considering she was up for periods of the night. I think aside from the girls, who slept well and until about 7:30 or 8:00, everybody else woke up a various moments and for various stretches throughout the night. Like we always say, the first night of any trip is always the hardest.

After a pancake and sausage breakfast, we got ourselves changed and ready for our first hike of the trip. From our campground, we headed south on 209 for a mile or two before reaching PEEC. There are a lot of family-friendly and dog-friendly trails around the center.

We picked a combo trailhead - the Two Ponds Trail and the Tumbling Falls Trail. That two trails go along the same path for just under a mile. If the girls were feeling good, we'd keep going on the longer trail - the Tumbling Falls Trail - and see some waterfalls. If it was too much, we'd keep it short and stick to the Two Ponds Trail.

By the time we started our hike at about 9:30, the sun was already out in full force and the humidity was creeping back up. Combine that with the bugs waking up from their nighttime slumber, and we ended up sticking to the Two Ponds Trail, which, as the name implies, takes you around two different ponds.

A Road Trip That Starts in Pennsylvania

After taking a road trip hiatus last summer, we're back in action in 2025. This time, we heading back to a familiar place: Acadia National Park.

Cara and I were there in 2017 with my family. A few years later, in 2019, we embarked on a ridiculous albeit action-packed Labor Day excursion with a 9-month-old Acadia.

With a Menzel family reunion planned for after our trip to Mount Desert Island, we decided to turn everything into a 2-week loop around the Northeast. Also for this trip, we are planning to limit any travel between sites to no more than 4-and-a-half hours. And also for this trip, we are staying at each site for a minimum of 2 nights.

The first stop on our journey keeps us in Pennsylvania on the western side of the Delaware River Water Gap.

We are staying at Dingman's Campground in the northern third of the park. From the campground, we have access to the McDade bike trails and a don't-swim but it's-ok-to-wade-in-the-water spot. There's also no cell service, so who knows when this post will make it through.

The campground is about 5 minutes from the Pennsylvania Enviornmental Education Center (PEEC). There are also a bunch of hiking trailheads every few miles with a few waterfall opportunities mixed in.

Arrival to the park and campground on Tuesday came at about 3 PM. It was incredibly hot and humid (94 degrees with humidity that feels like it could rain at any moment). Still, we were able to set up camp, get the bikes set up, and spend an hour or so checking out the campground.

Promise You PA State Parks are Incredible

Friday, August 5, 2022 - Saturday, August 6, 2022

And just like that, we were back in Pennsylvania at Promised Land State Park. Our 2022 road trip was coming to a close.

We pulled into Promised Land State Park in the early afternoon, but we could sense some rain on the way. We were fortunate enough to not only have a lakefront camp spot, but we also got the camper popped up in time before the downpour.

Pickerel Point campground, which is a part of Promised Land State Park, is on this thin piece of land that juts out into the lake. At the end is a beach. We were only a few sites from that beach, but we still had a lake-view site.

We were only here for one night, and it was our last full day on this trip, so we knew we were taking it easy.

So, naturally, we did some puddle jumping.

Dark and Stark

Thursday, August 4, 2022 - Friday, August 5, 2022

Our second-to-last stop on the 2022 road trip would keep us in Vermont. Because of our decision to spend an extra night in Burlington, it meant that we'd spend one less night at this Vermont State Park in the southwest corner of the state: Molly Stark State Park.

The decision to stay at this park was one of convenience. We knew our limits of traveling and camping with the girls, so we weren't looking to drive too far. And with us only spending one night here, we were glad we weren't driving much.

We knew nothing about this park other than checking out some campground maps and local hikes on AllTrails. Coincidently, I did stumble upon this Reddit post just before leaving., which gave us some interesting background on who Molly Stark was and why there's a park named after her.

Burlington: The Town, Not The Coat Store

Tuesday, August 2, 2022 - Wednesday, August 3, 2022 - Thursday, August 4, 2022

When we planned this trip, we originally scheduled ourselves to spend only one night in Burlington. Part of the reasoning behind this was that getting from Schroon Lake to Burlington was a two-hour drive at most (I think we did it in just under two hours). The other reason being that we couldn't find a campsite that would allow us to spend two nights in the same spot. We figured that if we were going to have to pack up the campsite anyway, then we'd be fine making our way to our next stop.

That said, as the dates above suggest, we changed our minds.

The North Beach Campground was unique in that it was situated directly in the town of Burlington. It was as if you were driving through a city with a camper, making a couple of turns, driving by a school, and finding yourself at the entrance to a campground on the shores of Lake Champlain.

While our campsite wasn't on the shore itself, it was a 5-minute walk to the beach, which was wide open and huge. It included a playground and tons of space for games, playing, and finding a spot away from others, which was a good thing with a dog.

So, naturally, the first thing we did after unhitching and unpacking a few things was to change and head down to the water.

"I've got my swim trunks and my flippy floppies"

Sunday, July 31, 2022 - Tuesday, August 2, 2022

In what seems to be a running theme during summer road trips with two young kids, updates are not as frequent as I'd like. And like in times before, I'm hoping that as the girls get older, I'll find myself with a little more time to update frequently or in real time.

For now, I'm going to take you back almost two years and continue our 2022 road trip through New York and into Vermont. Updates for this trip will be shorter in length for a couple of reasons.

The first reason being the time since the trip (and we've had another one in between this one and spring 2024).

The second has more to do with the emotional aspect of having to type these memorable trips with the family knowing that Lily - truly the greatest family dog in the world - is no longer with us. She ended up showing signs of cancer in the early summer of 2023 and crossed that poetic rainbow bridge in the fall of 2023. As tough as this may be to walk you through these trips, I'm hoping that it is also somewhat cathartic for me to think back on the best of the best with her.

A Family Affair in the Mountains of New York

Friday, July 29, 2022 - Sunday, July 31, 2022

One of these years, I hope, traveling with two kids will afford me a little bit more time to document in real time instead of months later. But much like our 2021 trip to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, I have to recap our 2022 trip after the fact. Unlike that trip, though, I hope to be able to finish documenting it. I realize now that I never finished writing up about our stay at a small but cute community park along Lake Huron in Pt. AuGres, Michigan, as well as our final stay in Cuyahoga Valley National Park before returning home.

For now, let's look back at 2022, which took us north into New York and Vermont before whipping back south into Pennsylvania. It was a 9-day, 8-night trip that included five different stops and some on-the-fly decisions about when and where to go.

Our reasoning for piecing together a trip like this stemmed from the fact that the annual Menzel family reunion was set to take place at a state park in upstate New York the weekend of July 29-31. After checking things out, and knowing that visiting Burlington and the White and Green Mountains of Vermont has always been on our list, we figured now would be as good as any to take this trip.

Stop number one would be North-South Lake State Park, which was only three hours away from Wilkes-Barre. So, I guess, technically an overnight stay at the lake would be stop 1a and North-South Lake would be stop 1b. And most of our activities would center around what the rest of the Menzel clan was up to, knowing that the main reunion part would take up Saturday.

As for our campsite, it was located in a fairly large campground, even if it didn't feel that way because of the density of hemlocks towering dozens of feet above you.