A few weekends ago I went camping and fishing with two fifteen year old boys; not two random fifteen year olds (that would be a little weird), it was my son Ben and his friend Jake. They’ve been friends since around birth (same child care, different cribs) and close enough that we sometimes call them Jen and Bake. They have their own language, mostly grunts and giggles that no one else shares, they’re that close. They also love to fish, and I thought it would be fun to get away for an end of summer road-trip. I don’t fish, but know how to pitch a tent, start a campfire, with a lighter and newspaper, and get lost in the woods. This would be one of those trips we’d talk about for years, a lifetime adventure. Also, if you were to invent a sitcom for primetime TV you could do worse than a guy and two teenagers on a camping trip, right?
We left the moms in charge of supplies and ended up with a car tightly packed with enough provisions to start a small, but thriving community. We could have lived for six months off what we brought back from the trip. We had an idea where we were headed, we knew we’d be sleeping in tents, we knew we’d be looking for fish, and that’s about it. We drove north and east, with sketchy plans, full hearts, and a car filled with household staples like dish detergent, hand sanitizer, oven mitts, and four rolls of toilet paper. Thanks mom…but what do you think happens in the woods? We’re not bears!
Zip across 90, through Buffalo and Rochester. At Syracuse pay your toll and take a left up I-81. Watch civilization disappear in your rear view. Forests line the highway, both sides and thicker as you drive north. No Facilities This Exit signs come and go…if there’s no facilities, why have an exit? Lake Ontario off to your west. The beginnings of the Adirondack Mountains to the east. That’s where we’re going. The higher you climb on the map, the more you leave it behind; traffic, buildings, people, electricity, easy access to potable water.
We swing into a Gander Mountain and I buy a fishing license, my first ever, and now you have an idea what I’m getting myself into, rookie status. The boys shop for lures and beef jerky, because that’s what boys do. We’re back in the car for another 45 minutes or so and we slip off the Redfield exit. A few wrongs, a few rights on back roads for another half hour and we’re at a friend’s hunting/sledding camp in Osceola off the Tug Hill Plateau. Osceola is a suburb of a place with a population of 229 living souls, so that should tell you something about where we are relative to civilization and a working toilet.
The front seat of the Dodge has been okay for the ride, but the back is tight with supplies and Jake has been forced into a cramped space smaller than a middle row airline seat. He’s surrounded by sleeping bags, pillows, tackle boxes, and the tips of fishing poles tickling the top of his head for the past five car-hours. We pop open the car doors and equipment and coolers and boys spill onto the camp site, like a clown car. The boys go to scout the terrain, I set up camp. I empty the car of essentials, built tents, prep food, set up the grill, gather wood, and do a bunch of things that feel like camping. They come back, retrieve fishing gear and head back out. There’s a river nearby, maybe some trout, plenty of woods and acreage to explore. Where would you rather be, right Marv Levy? The boys are gone until about dark and come back fishless but energized and hungry. Camp is ready, a fire started, lighter fluid, roughing it!. We’ll feed off supplies tonight. I cook packaged hamburgers (thanks mom), and re-fried beans (thanks dad… I think you boys had enough Mr. Taggert). We sit by the fire, crack fishing and refried beans jokes, and talk about the plans for tomorrow. There’s intermittent cell phone reception so we engage each other in conversation, slow and staggered at first, and better as we go; relearning how to communicate without electronics (a great tactic for connecting with a teenager).
Anonymous/Probably Dave Barry if I had to guess
Me to worms is Indiana Jones to snakes.
Bill Burk
I find myself in Osceola, NY, on the Tug Hill Plateau, the western edge of the Adirondacks, camping with my fifteen year old son Ben and his buddy Jake. A long day of travel, camp set-up, fresh air, a clear moon, and a tip-of-the-tongue taste of adventure have conspired to induce a festival of fireside yawns. We crash early; the boys want to do a 5am start, maybe to surprise the river trout in their sleep, or sneak up on any getting home from third shift at the, well, wherever fish work…who knows? I’m duly impressed, but will not participate. I do 5am to catch cheap flights, beat traffic, and, well, nothing else I can think of. As we settle into our tents, them in one, me in another, I think of mosquitoes, lumpy ground, and of course, bears. Per panicked instructions from moms, we’ve secured our food and garbage in the car, but who’s to say a fifteen year old processing refried beans isn’t an attractive meal for the local bear in search of a midnight human tootsie roll.
I know what passes for concerning and out of place noises in my house, not so much in the woods. I nod off uncomfortably, ears tuned to the tree line. Soon, and for some unknown reason, maybe the full moon, maybe a cosmic joke on dad, Ben’s cell phone, recharging in the car, picks up a signal and starts to receive text messages, one after the other in quick succession, pent up communications beamed from home. Annoying, right? Except my son’s ring-tone is Chewbacca thundering at some Star Wars insult. I’m awakened by this roar.
According to Wikipedia, Chewbacca’s voice was created by the original films’ sound designer, Ben Burtt, from a mix of recordings of walruses, lions, camels, rabbits, tigers badgers, and yes bears. I do not hear rabbits, I only hear bears. I stay quiet and listen for rustling, trying to push panic back down my throat and remember what to do in case of a bear attack. The only bear-fact I can remember is the punchline of the old joke, I don’t have to run faster than the bear, I only have to run faster than you. I don’t think the moms would laugh. After a few minutes I notice something about this “bear in the woods.” He (she?) makes the exact same growl about every 30 seconds or so, silent in between. Hmmm. That’s pretty specific bear-ing. Eventually I figure it out. I get out of my tent into the dusky night…and kick Ben’s tent until he wakes up.
Breaking camp was like a Lucy skit. What started the day before as a tightly packaged camping expedition, overnight turned into a spread of tents, sleeping bags, and scattered cooking utensils. We wadded everything as tight as possible and jammed and crammed and still had gear that wouldn’t fit in the car. More pushing, shoving and stuffing got us close. Jake’s middle airline seat became a cocoon. At one point he stood outside the car and leaned his shoulder into the mess to create a quarter inch more space…not realizing Ben had opened the opposite door on the other side of the car. Out goes everything, including the food cooler containing the dozen eggs intended for breakfast. We salvaged three and sacrificed the rest to slapstick comedy.
Bypass Route 104 right in front of you because you’re pretty sure you know where you’re going…maybe a shortcut. Hint; it’s the wrong way, but you don’t know that; in fact you don’t know where you’re going and there are no shortcuts here. So, drive in a big arching circle for a half hour and end up back where you started. GPS signal comes and goes. When it’s spot on you have a good chance of getting to your next destination. When it’s spot-off you make it up and try to find roads leading east and north. You’re headed for Old Forge on the Fulton Chain of lakes. Maps!? We don’t need no stinkin’ maps. You’re traveling companions are fast asleep, and what IS that smell coming from the passenger and back seats? You didn’t have enough coffee, and oh you’re low on gas. Good luck campers.
| I think we consider too much the good luck of the early bird and not enough the bad luck of the early worm. Franklin D. Roosevelt |
If you combined the general geographic temperaments of Chautauqua Lake and Cassadaga Lake and stretched that idea through five bodies of water, you’d have something like the Fulton Chain of Lakes. They’re numbered First through Fifth, a twelve mile stretch of open water separated by canals and small narrows. There’s actually eight lakes total, but only five connected, the other three are not attached and require a portage to access. Here’s a description:
The Fulton Chain of Lakes is part of a river system originally dammed at Old Forge in 1798. Water flowing through the Fulton Chain starting at 8th Lake enters the middle branch of the Moose River at the Old Forge Dam. The present dam at Old Forge holds back 6.8 billion gallons of water. The Lower Fulton Chain starts at Old Forge Pond, travels the one mile channel or “Narrows” to First Lake, then to Second and Third, through a channel to Fourth Lake then past Eagle Bay and on to Inlet – a total distance of about 10 miles. The Chain continues through to Fifth lake, from there one must portage their boat to Sixth and Seventh Lakes, which are navigable from one to the other. Eight Lake is accessible once again by portage only.
The lads and I were headed for Fourth Lake by car. I don’t do 5am and I don’t portage. The boys had their extensive fishing gear, two rods each, and a fly set-up, tackle boxes, live bait, extra lines, lures, yada yada. They handed me the rod and reel that was the least likely to mess up, simple setup nothing special, one lure chosen at random, probably the one they’d least mind ending up at the bottom of a lake; standard rookie issue. The reel squeaked conspicuously, designed I’m sure, to drive fish away from me and into the waiting hooks of the more sophisticated, opportunistic anglers. On our way to the lake we stopped at the Moose River Bridge. It was a fairly cool little river framed by a cement facade of a once usable railroad. Not exactly deep-woods stuff, but a neat little area that looked to sponsor fish. It’s where, were I a brown trout, I’d choose to hang out, alternating shallows with reasonable rapids, implanted boulders and a hint of civilization. A real nightclub atmosphere for fish. We slogged into the creek, and spent time casting spoons into the shallows and white water. I caught the first fish (my only fish it would turn out), one that got bigger the longer the trip lasted.
After a few hours we packed back into the sausage casing car and finished the drive to Old Forge. Old Forge was bristling with summer activity, but no fish. It sits hard on the western end of the Fulton Lakes, a vacation, swimming, boating Adirondack hotspot. We hit up the Old Forge Information Center (a log cabin structure, just like you’d figure) and grabbed complimentary maps and propaganda. I’d like the printing concession in these small towns, lucky there’s a lot of trees to turn into all that paper. Bottom line was that ‘Forge is on First Lake and any fishing was down the road on Fourth Lake. We loaded up and followed the lake chains to Inlet, NY, which was pretty much Old Forge with different street signs. Cute, bucolic, cabin-rimmed lake-front, local shops, plenty of ice-cream shacks for the kiddies, Adirondack-themed bars and places where you could buy a genuine coon skinned Daniel Boone cap (okay, I made that last part up). We hit a remarkably similar information center and found the local KOA camp ground.
We discovered a marina with reasonable fishing boat rentals, and reserved one for the following day. There is a classic camp ground on state land slightly north and east of Inlet on another body of water (see a theme here?) called Limekiln Lake. A tent site cost $21. We registered, paid the fare, and picked a site close to the lake-front. The boys once again fished while I built our accommodations, getting good at it by now, and figured out how to use the “bear box”. That’s right, more bear issues.
Made camp on Lake Limekin, one lake north of the Fulton Chain. The state camp ground there features winding roads through wooded lots lined with camp sites, a swimming beach, and shower facilities, of which I gladly partook and the boys studiously ignored. Apparently, bears are so popular there you must, by law, secure all your food and garbage in a big steel box. Otherwise bears might come and eat it, day or night, with you there or not. Bears that would apparently wander through campsites, around motor homes and, camp fires, and parked cars to eat your leftover eggs and bacon-drippings…that brand of bear. Nice.
As we’d yet to catch any dinner, we did what any self respecting mountain men would do and we drove into Inlet and found a pizza joint. Civilization is righteous; pitchers of soda, huge pizza pies, a live banjo band on the back deck, and preseason football on the big screen. Occasionally I need to be reminded of the merits of camping in the great outdoors, mainlining moonlight, and campfire smoke and dreaming of running water; this side-trip into town did the exact opposite of that.
One thing not on the campground brochure was how much partying campers do on weekends on Lake Limekin, nor how easily party-noises carry through the crisp air of the Adirondacks. I believe Limekin is the Indian name for “Live Band”, as in, the sound system at this Limekin ROCKS!! This had to be the loudest camping experience I have ever, um experienced. It felt like I was in the front row of a concert. At about 1am a huge motor home backed in to a site directly up a hill from our tents. I thought a 747 was landing on my head. Sleep came hard that night, but our bellies were full of pizza.
We spent the next day in a rented boat on the lakes of Fulton, First through Fourth, catching almost no fish. The lake was too warm and full of pleasure craft for fish to bite…would have been nice to know that ahead of time.
We enjoyed the sun, pre-made sandwiches, and the company of men, plenty of fun, but this was no place for fish. We decided, on a whim, to drop the boat, drag up stakes at the The Limekin Disco, and head west, toward other fishing opportunities and closer to home. Heading out on a whim is something you can do with fifteen-year-olds, and a driver who knows nothing. It’s not something you can do with for instance, moms. It’s a refreshing way to vacation. “Pack up boys…we’re leaving!”
We drove to Pulaski, New York, about half-way between Syracuse and Watertown. Pulaski has a salmon run like few others in the state, legendary for the number and size of the fish snagged there in the Fall. August isn’t precisely when the salmon do their kamikaze mating runs upriver, but it was a reasonable destination for us. Pulaski looks a lot like a smaller, tighter version of the Jamestown Riverwalk area, cement walls and walk-up grass that frame the rapids of a river roughly the size of the Chadakoin as it passes through downtown Jamestown. We found a spot in town and the boys unloaded enough gear to bait and cast some more. I spent some time looking for accommodations for the night, slapping mosquitoes, and staying upwind of my charges. Since it was in fact August we had the place to ourselves, and eventually I grabbed my gear and joined the boys, lazily casting and watching my line work downstream. Occasionally we saw a salmon breach and splash in the middle of the river, too deep and too smart to take our bait. Jake was worn out and gave his fishing a lackluster effort. Ben caught a wind and waded into deeper water, eventually discovering a trout pod and hauled in some seven or eight bites before he finally cashed it in.
When we regrouped, it became obvious that the fishing adventure was done, we were worn down and all fished out. We grabbed some snacks, a gallon of coffee and drove home.
So the worms… When I was young and impressionable I read the Dune series of books by Frank Herbert. It’s a sprawling science fiction space fantasy with flawed heroes, multi-dimensional villains, and epic all-devouring, monstrous worms. Around that time I also watched the movie Tremors, some of Kevin Bacon’s best work…go ahead and IMBD-it. It’s full of worms and it ain’t pretty. I don’t like them, and I don’t think they like me, so, next trip…Vegas!!
Bill Burk's collective writing...and some other stuff. 