We were pretty exhausted Monday night, so we didn't do much once we got home. Audra wasn't feeling well, so she made a doctor's appointment via MyGeisinger.org, a website that I help support at work.

Tuesday morning came and Audra showed up for her 9:10 appointment and the office said they had no record of the appointment being made. This necessitated several phone calls to folks on my team to see what happened. There's still no clear explanation for the computer glitch, but Audra was eventually able to get in at 1:00 to see her doctor. Audra was upset and annoyed for obvious reasons, and I was annoyed because I was supposed to be on vacation and really didn't want to deal with such nonsense.

My father came to play music for a couple of hours, and we messed around with some reel to reel recorded that he has been working with. It's fun to watch the reels spin - something you just don't get with a computer or DAT machine, which is what I typically use these days.

The original plan was for Audra to go to the doctor and then do some planning and shopping for our camping trip. The doctor's appointment debacle wasted several hours of valuable packing and planning time which resulted in us forgetting several things (see below).

There's been construction on I-80, so we took the back roads and 924 to Hickory Run. We had reservations, so it wasn't long before we were at our site and set up. Aside from a weekend at Yogi on the River in a cabin, the last time I was camping was on the 2003 West Coast tour with The Bodó Band. It had been over 5 years since I visited Hickory Run, still one of the best places for tent camping in the state.

It soon became clear that I had completely forgotten to pack my hiking boots. Earlier in the day I had worn my sandals to pack the car, and we did most of the packing from the back door of the house. My boots were on the front porch, so they never even made it on the radar.

I attempted a brief nature walk by one of the nearby streams, but it soon became apparent that I wasn't going very far unless I wanted a twisted ankle. So we returned to the tent and spent most of the day reading and relaxing. I brought along three books, knowing I probably would finish one. I was trying to finish "Zen in the Art of Rhetoric" by Mark Lawrence McPhail, which draws greatly on "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" and looks at rhetoric, education and intercultural issues. Not exactly light vacation reading. I first became aware of the book during one of my rhetoric classes at BU, and really wanted to have it read before my Intelligent Design paper was complete, but there just wasn't time.

Another book I had started was "The World of Caffeine: The Science and Culture of the World's Most Popular Drug." So I bounced back and forth between those books throughout the trip. I also brought a book of World Mythology that I picked up on discount at Walden's when we were in Allentown, but I didn't get to read it.

The usual wildlife was present. A turkey walked through our camp site twice, and there were squirrels and chipmunks, but they were all too fast to get any pictures.

We had a late lunch and just spent the rest of the day hanging out at the camp site. The weather was great, and there weren't many people at the campground, so it was fairly quiet.

The next day we realized that both of us had forgotten our deodorant, and that I had forgotten the extra boxers I packed (they were later found neatly arranged on the bed at home where I left them in the packing craze on Tuesday).

We had a light breakfast and took a drive out to one of the waterfalls where we sat for a while to read.

After reading the caffeine book, I had a hankering for some coffee, so we made a run into White Haven and lo and behold there was a coffee shop. The Main Street Coffee Works is a small place (3-4 tables) not far from the Ugly Mug, near the railroad tracks. The drinks and desserts were decent and we'd go back. We picked up some firewood on the way back to the site and spent the rest of the day reading. Later I collated some firewood and we got ready for dinner.

After dinner we watched the fire for a while and then did some reading before bed. I I had only a few pages of the rhetoric book to go before I passed out.

The next morning we found that the leftovers we had placed in the trunk of Audra's car had attracted a mouse. It seems to have made its way up the wheel well and into the trunk where it ate through some of our snacks and through one of the dish towels. We caught him in the act, but he crawled back down the wheel well where we hope he escaped.

From there is was back to Bloomsburg to unload and regroup for our next destination on the agenda: Harrisburg. That will be the subject of the next section, then I will post some reflections on this week.