On saturday, after being locked out of Thayer Hall and then finding out my project meeting was canceled, I took off for the night and drove to my favorite town in NY, Haines Falls. I met up with Leah, Celio, and Heather, who had already been camping there for a night. I got there around 7pm, and since they were already at the s'more making part of the evening, and I hadn't eaten dinner, I procceded to consume 4 or 5 s'mores over the course of the night. Celio was greatly amused by a chicken carcass that he had on a stick, and was waving it around, sticking it in everybody's face, and trying to get it to burn in the fire. He had roasted the chicken over the fire for their dinner, and from what they were all saying, it turned out very well. Too bad I missed it. We sat around the fire for a long time talking, stuffing our faces with s'mores, candied apples, and the individual parts of s'mores.

The excitment of the evening happened when we heard a rustling over by the picnic table. Celio told me to turn on my lantern, and when I did we saw a huge racoon. We claim it was 50 lbs, but it was probably only 20 or 30 lbs. I'm terrible at guessing weight, so it may have been much less than that. In any case, it was enormous. Celio ran after it with a big stick, and then a man popped out of the woods and asked if the racoon was over by us. The racoon tried to climb up a tree, and celio was running around the tree with the stick, Heather and I were standing off to the side watching, and Leah was asking Celio to not hit the racoon. The racoon decided the tree wasn't the best bet, and decided to try and make a run for it. The man threw a rather large rock at it, but missed, and the racoon ran/waddled off into the darkness.

I eventually got up around 9am, read for awhile until everyone else got up, and then we packed up our campsite. For breakfast we ate at the same diner that Leah, Celio and I ate at after we went backpacking right after graduation in June. The meal we ate back in June was the second best breakfast I've ever had, the first being the breakfast following Robin Sage. Both were so good because it was the first real meal I'd eaten in a few days/weeks. This morning's breakfast was good, but not comparable to either of those two.

Following breakfast we hiked to a gorgeous senic overlook of the Hudson Valley, and then hiked around in the woods for about two hours. We came across the perfect camping spot up on the top of a mountian by the former site of very nice hotel at the turn of the 20th century.

On the way back we made a detour to Woodstock, walked around there seeing the sites/people, and ate ice cream. We came to the conclusion that the hippies have turned into yuppies. For being supposidely so free thinking, diverse, liberal, etc...I noticed that just about everyone there appeared to be middle/upper middle class, and Caucasion. There were numerous BMW's, Mercedes, and other very nice cars lineing the streets. Heather found it amusing that the one ultra-hippey looking man we saw was actually standing there trying to make money by looking like an ultra-hippey person. (If any of this is offensive or not politically correct, please let me know and I will remove it...if you ask nicely).

Now I'm back at school and looking forward to a week of morning practice every morning. Sleep deprivation here I come.