Well, the snow in Central New York is ALMOST gone. I crunched into a gritty snowbank today, but I think they'll soon be history after the weekend's forecasted high temperatures. It's going to get up to a whopping 63 degrees on Sunday! We're living high on the hog, now!

The kids want to go camping this year. Specifically, camping in the Adirondacks AND camping in the Shenandoah National Park. I don't know if we'll get to do both this year, but probably one. I guess that means I'll have to air out the camping tents, as the last time we used them was in 2006, when severe flooding washed over them. I haven't been camping in SO LONG. Come to think of it, I think I have only camped once or twice in my life! When I was a girl, however, we slept in the house but we lived in the woods off the land, so I know how to "rough it." But I don't have any thing for camping. No camping stove, no sleeping bags... yah, we'll REALLY be roughing it, lol! But it will be a good experience for the kids. They need to get out and enjoy nature.

I found this photo of the Shenandoah Valley, on Wikipedia. *sigh* It's so lovely. It reminds me of the Catskills, where I lived for a time.


View from Pinnacles Overlook, June 2007. Photo by W. Grotophorst at description page on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Skyline_view_2007.jpg.

I'd heard that Shenandoah Valley was named for Shenandoah, or Chief Schenandoa, of the Oneida Indian Nation. But Wikipedia implies that Shenandoah comes from the Indian tribe Senados. Do you happen to know which is true?

And did you know that the land acquired for the Shenandoah National Park was through eminent domain? Some folks signed the papers and left, while others were a bit more stubborn and wouldn't leave. So the government allowed the people to stay, living in the park, until they died. The last to die was Annie Bradley Shenk who died in 1979 at age 92!!! I wonder if these folks were the ones who contributed to the stories and lessons in those old FoxFire books-- remember those?

SO we're going to have to load up on the camping gear in the near future. And I'll probably bring the FoxFire book, too, in case we need to skin a wild boar. ;)