About two weeks ago I saw a social media post from a weather report showing we were in "Summers last gasp". Hoping that wasn't quite true, we planned a trip to nearby Lake Elmore state park this last weekend 9/25-26.
Lake Elmore State Park is a great Vermont State Park just a short drive from Montpelier, Stowe, or Morrisville. It has lake access, spacious campsites, and is fairly quiet. It offers a scenic hike to a fire tower with panoramic views of both sides of Elmore Mountain and a much shorter nature trail.
We invited a few other families to join us on this trip and we were delighted Mike and Rachel and their kids were able to make it.
Elmore is only 40 minutes from home, but some strange force in the universe decided it wasn't going to make this an easy trip for anyone. Friday morning Mike emailed letting us know he found a flat tire on his truck but hoped to have it repaired in time to depart. He Made it. But we too found a tire problem when we tried to leave town at 5pm. We heard the distinctive thump, thump, thump of a low/flat tire. After a quick inspection, I found one of the inside dualies on our motorhome was very low. We thought a trip to the gas station might help but nope. We needed the spare. We returned home, and due to a dispatching problem with AAA, we were not on the road until after 9pm. Arriving around 10pm at Elmore we parked on our site and crashed for the night.
Saturday morning started with some cooler temps but things quickly warmed up. Mike, Rachel, and the kids joined us for breakfast. Over breakfast we some of us decided on a hike to the fire tower. Mike and his daughter opted for a paddleboat ride across the lake. On the hike, we encountered an unusual amount of dogs on the trail. Great to see all the dog people taking their pets along for some time outdoors. The tower hike has three different levels of hiking. Easy, Moderate, and Moderate+. A portion of the trail can be done as a loop if desired. We chose straight up/down. The views were wonderful. Especially the panoramic view from the top of the tower. When we finally returned to the campground our daughter decided she was going to swim. Which didn't last long, but she's braver than the rest of us for trying. We spent Saturday night around the fire cooking a dutch oven enchilada bake. Which seemed to be well-liked by everyone.
Sunday was another nice breakfast shared with Mike, Rachel, and family. Pancakes! Something Mike and I cook a lot of at the Family Camp-out our families usually host Labor Day weekend. We took our time to pack and our family decided on another short hike along the nature trail before we departed.
Rachel, Andrea and myself.
The hikers: Andrea, Rachel, Rachel Logan, and Aaron
Lake Elmore from the fire tower trial.
Lake Elmore from the top of the fire tower.
Rachel goes swimming!
Rachel unimpressed.
No comments:
Post a Comment