Tom, Christina, Brett, Caroline, Alice, and I went for a quick overnight to the Mullica River Wilderness Campground. Taking advantage of having more than one vehicle in play, we shuttled cars so that Saturday we hiked the ~5.5mi from Atsion to the campground and then on Sunday continued south the ~4.5mi to Batsto. Saturday took about 2.5hrs and Sunday 2hrs. Fortunately we had very pleasant weather, a weekend break from this July’s alternating extreme heat and rain.
This was the first time Alice has gone backpacking in 3 or 4 years. She carried all of her own gear and supplies: Sleeping bag, sleeping pad, pillow, clothes, sandals for wading at the riverside camp, snacks, water.
I, awesome dad that I am who knew his princess would love to have a campfire, carried in a bag of firewood so we didn’t have to rely on scrounging for dry deadwood, a questionable proposition in this camp area. Brett, questionable adult that he is, helpfully and responsibly brought throwing knives for everyone to play with…
The camp area was fairly populated though it’s well designed to feel secluded despite being fairly open. Plus, if they got too close we had our throwing knives and certainly were not more of a danger to ourselves than any potential invaders. And who doesn’t love waking up to dubstep played at a reasonable volume shortly after daybreak? Only old cranky middle-aged campers, that’s who, and that’s obviously not us.
The campfire was indeed a big hit, with Alice supervising her minions for hours to craft her vision of how it should go. A prominent part of this was leveraging the fire circle’s grill to make a “double-decker fire.”
I had assumed everybody would be up bright & early but nope. We got a lazy start after I’d already spent a solid morning commandeering Brett’s hammock to read half a book and take a nap.
The Shamong Diner that we used to visit on the way home from Wharton State Forest having closed, we stopped by Olga’s Diner. It turns out this is a modern incarnation of a longstanding diner that used to be famously in the middle of the traffic circle located there until the whole highway was redone. We went there because it has a small but significant explicitly vegan menu.
Alice took on this mini-adventure exceptionally. There was only negligible pro forma complaint and disbelief when the plan was originally announced, signaling secret interest. Once packing actually started there were plenty of interesting things going on and opinions to have so she was very engaged and proactive. And, as often happens, she had clearly decided internally that the hard, novel task—carrying all her stuff and walking “so far”—was a challenge and not a chore, so she was committed to crushing it. This included carefully tracking time with her own watch to determine when we should take water breaks as she visibly balanced wanting to stop with wanting to go fast, and knowing dad builds most hikes around hourly quick breaks. Certainly she was very proud of herself for having carried all her gear and making good time both days.