Day 6: Fall Adventure 2023: No cookies for you; Valley Country Club, Sugarloaf, PA

Howdy. I bet you thought we would have had a terrible night sleep. Turns out Travis ran out of steam at around 2130 and went silent. The crowd of his wife and the other lady that wandered over seemed appreciative of his stamina having played for about 2 hours. Miller Lite is apparently the fuel of music legends.

Hit the trails around 0830 with a goal of doing one of the nature trails. Turns out the trail was sand and I had applied my street shoes (New Balance 880 this time) and not my trail shoes (Hoka Trail Goat 5). I toured around the old world war 2 military base and took plenty of pictures of the big guns. I can relate to the big guns! I also climbed the observatory and took some pictures.

Walk cut short so we could get out of dodge. Travis had ignited his smoke generator, AKA fire pit and we could be elsewhere. Disconnect. Make eye contact in that “we suffer together” way with the neighbour behind and hit the road. First stop was the dump station. Guess what? Still faeces free! But, I let a wasp into the van that I thought was a fly and I grabbed it out of the air to dispose off it. The wasp stung me between the second and ring finger but I killed the wasp. Not sure who won that one. Reasonable swelling and pain ensued. Fourth wasp sting this year. I’m on a roll. Not a good roll. Mrs Milddogs slapped some Benadryl on it.

We went to the observatory tower so we could climb together and take a picture.

Then we hit the road for reals. We meandered our way up Delaware (the one in the US of A) and stopped south of Wilmington at Costco for some gas and other stuff. We luxed out and had Costco Hot Dogs and a soft drink for lunch. We also grabbed a churro but it was not worth it. Then, with and ounce or two of stupid route planning I checked the map and saw all of the nice places to grab lunch. Oops, we could have had Shake Shack (chicken burger is the best).

Post Costco we stopped for some Crumbl Cookies and a bit of shopping. Sad news, we did not get any Crumbl Cookies cause none of them appealed to us. Once you have had the Snickerdoodle Cupcake cookie, nothing else is good enough.

Using my crafty navigation skills I selected “shortest route” as the preferred path on the dueling GPSs. That might have been a mistake. We only had another 180 or so KM from Costco to our destination, but that took a wee bit over 3 hours. Plenty of tight mountain roads in Pennsylvania. Oh, did I mention my hand was swollen from the wasp sting. Made the death grip on the steering wheel just a bit uncomfortable. But it was a nice drive through areas would would not have gone otherwise. We saw plenty of men with beards and suspenders.

Our destination was the Valley Country Club in Sugarloaf, PA. We booked this spot through our recently renewed Harvest Hosts membership. With Harvest Hosts you can camp in exchange for frequenting the business hosting you. No camping services are generally offered except for place to park. Once we got parked up by the tennis courts we headed to the restaurant for some appetizers as a way to show our appreciation. We hoped they would be better than our Costco hot dogs we had for lunch.

Wait! I don’t have to drive! I can have a draft beer. I hoped they would have Coors Light on tap. Bad news, they only had Miller Lite and Bud Light on tap. Well, I’ve had Bud Light before and it was pretty good. I saw what excess Miller Lite did to our camping neighbour last night. And, selecting Bud Light would show some support for the right people. Bud Light it is!

I thought about asking to keep the glass

We had an appetizer of gnocchi and stuff. I had a philly cheese steak and tater tots for dinner (did I mention I had some beer, my judgement may have been off) and then we share a brownie sunday for dessert. We may not need to eat tomorrow. It was pretty good and the views were fantastic looking over the golf course and the Lehigh Valley in Pennsylvania. Great selection on this spot, Mrs Milddogs!

On the downside with our Harvest Host spot, being right next to the tennis courts meant that the dudes that showed up and cranked the tunes while they played tennis at night with lights illuminating the course was just a tad annoying.

A few more words about Cape Henlopen. OK, you can’t fault the park for a bad neighbour. Everything but the campground is really nice at the park. The campsites are just too packed in, increasing the impact of your neighbours on your jam. I really liked the trails, the World War 2 museum parts and the geography. We saw deer, dolphins, osprey, bald eagles. Heard some cool Cicadas and some uncool American country star wannabes. Use the park, but camp carefully. Note that it is booked solid throughout the year.