Promised Land State Park

And now, over a week after that fact, I will write about our camping trip to Promised Land State Park!   It takes me forever to write, but mostly because it took me forever to edit and go through all of the photos that I took. 

The technical stuff: there are tons of campgrounds throughout this state park.   We chose to camp at "Pickerel Point" campground, which was a long finger of campsites situated on a small peninsula of land on the lake.  I arbitrarily picked site 136 and that site happened to be the coolest on the peninsula!   It was directly lakeside with a beautiful view and constant access to lake swimming for the dogs.   Perfect.

We arrived on Monday morning, set the camper up and got settled in and I took both girldogs for a long walk: it turned out to be roughly 10 miles!   I get carried away...  We set out around the right side of the lake and road walked for a while before trying the Whittaker Trail into the woods.

We hiked through the woods until coming into a clearing and discovering a small pond there.   I let both dogs swim there and run around a little bit together.

We continued through the woods, towards the day use area and the next geocache on my search list...

We walked and walked and eventually came upon a blind on the lake.   There was a nearby bald eagle nest that was in this protected area, as well as many posters and information about bald eagles inside of the blind.   This demonstration was set up to illustrate how big a bald eagle nest really is, hard to imagine!   I have been following the live streaming of the eagle nest in Hanover, PA since mid-winter before the eggs hatched, so it was very enjoyable for me to stumble on another bald eagle area.

Perri for scale.

View from the blind.

We continued back towards the campsite via the Rhodedendron Trail and collected our final geocache find for the evening.

Molly was fed up with this ridiculously long walk and wanted a nice dinner and bed to snuggle into!  We got back to the camper and she got to do exactly that.  As usual she tornado'd all the blankets on the camper bed to her liking and was in dreamland and snoring.

Tuesday morning we had a big breakfast and all the dogs got their own share of mini sausages and eggs, and then the whole family headed out to the Falls trail - even Vince and Ein!   Ein was in ecstasy to be out on the trail and with a large helping of smugness that he was the only dog I would permit off leash.  He scampered back and forth, he laid down in the stream and gazed at the rest of us who were far behind him on the trail and waited for us to catch up....he is so cute!  

We came out of the woods and did a mile loop on the snowmobile trails adjacent to the Falls Trail.  I very much wanted to find two geocaches that were hidden in that trail system, but I was having a hard time navigating towards them nonchalantly.   Vince is not a fan of geocaching!  I was not able to get us to where those caches were hidden in an "along the route, may as well find it while we are here!" type of fashion, and it was very hot and the dogs were lagging, so we went back into the woods.   Next time!   We were all happy to get under shade, and the dogs were happy to get a drink.

Back in the woods, we set the dogs up for the obligatory group photo.

And back to the campsite again!  This is a photo of the view right from where we were camped, about 300 feet away from the shore.   Beautiful.  We ate lunch and the dogs enjoyed some fetch in the lake, and then they all took a nap while I read a book.  Paradise!

As usual, a ridiculous time was had!

I love the ex-pen for camping!  Perri loves her pittie pillow.

We did go out for one final drive around the park, and finished off with a short walk around "Conservation Island" for my last geocache find of our trip.  

This park was easily in my top 5 favorite PA State Parks that I have visited so far.  The trail map was accurate and all trails were clearly marked.   The campsite was clean and very well cared for, it was easy to find.   There were plenty of trails to be explored, and a lot to see - and the campsite on the lake just can't be beat!  We plan to visit again in the fall.