Tom's Camping Blueberry Crumble

4-5 Strawberry Newtons for each person
A handful of fresh berries (blueberries is what we used)

Crumble up the newtons in a plastic bag or bowl, add berries and mix. Eat for dessert after a long paddle or hike.

We left a plastic baggie of newtons in the bottom of my pack when we were kayaking, and by the end of the day they were quite squashed. However my 11 year old is a culinary wonder and came up with this-it was really good.

Last week Tom and I went on a 4 day, 56 mile kayaking trip on the Seneca River and Erie Canal. The idea was to kayak to our friends house in Syracuse, for Cullen's birthday party (Tom's friend.)We decided to kayak half of the journey, as we did not have time to do the whole way. Dave dropped us off (about halfway along) and we put in at a marina on the northeast edge of Seneca Lake, which is right by the entrance to the Seneca River. I have a fishing kayak (Ocean Kayak Prowler 13 Angler-bought as a previous year model for a steal!), and was able to load up all our camping gear and clothing in my dry hatch, and two small coolers and a backpack on the back of my boat. Tom stored stools, cooking equiptment, and a camp pad in his hatch, which is not water tight. We took all our food for 4 days, planning to stop and refill our water bottles at campsites. We went way too slow the first half of the day, but enjoyed the paddle and saw many Great Blue Herons, swallows, and many boats and little vacation homes.

We had a double scare at lunch, first we were floating and earsplitting screams rent the air-two teenage girls leaped out of a tree into the water about 10 feet from us! We had no idea they were even there! Heart attack! We decided to go on shore across the stream for lunch, and as we were unpacking the cooler Tom, who was in the water, started screaming TURTLE! and clutching his ankle. I pulled him out of the water, thinking if we could drag the turtle out of the water I could get it to let go, bet when he get his foot out there was nothing there (we have snapping turtles here which when full grown can take off a toe in a second). No blood, just a little redness, and the water was too cloudy to see what had grabbed him. After lunch I went back over, and in the now clear water was a muskrat trap, one of those snap traps made of heavy steel and chained down in the water. No signs, no flags to mark there was trapping there. I thought Tom was pretty lucky that he was able to get his toe out so easy. That could have been ugly.

We ended up going through two locks that day, which was a new expirience. Locks are huge watertight boxes on the river which allows a boat to go up or down in water level without going over waterfalls. You paddle in, they shut the door, raise or lower the water level, then open the opposite doors and you paddle out. They were meant to allow huge barges to travel across the state without unloading. The walls were all slimy and many had zebra mussels (which are an invasive foriegn species) that would spit water at you as the water level lowered and they became exposed to air.
We also saw the Seneca Falls Sculture Park, where we took a break. Some really neat statues along a scenic path on the river. We also started playing with the GPS Dave had me take along, and was that ever cool! It told you how long you had moved, how long you stopped, how many miles you traveled, rate of speed, average moving rate of speed and overall average rate of speed including breaks. It also had a compass (although I had a more accurate one on my boat) and a map.

We ended up paddling 19.5 miles the first day, and camped at the Oak Orchard Campsite. We were exhausted and when we pulled up there is Dave, Nick (our oldest) Steve (brother in law) and Greg (cousin in law). They were worried about us and decided to make sure we got in alright. I told them I would call when I got in but they expected us to call several times during the day. Seemed a little weird to paddle so far and have them just show up. Sort of like when Dave climbed Whiteface Mountain with a full pack and at the top there were dozens of Japanese tourists out of a bus taking pictures.

The second night after 14 miles we stayed at River Forest campgrounds, which was mainly an RV park for summer residents. The campsites were a riot to look at, lots of NASCAR logos, cheap and numerous garden statues, old ladies in sparkly cloths and golf carts everywhere. We did get the most remote site and it was nice and quiet. The third night we camped out on Maloney Island, west of Balwinsville. It is just a small uninhabited island, and we pulled the boats up into the woods so no one would know we were there. There were many speed boats at that point, and we didn't want to have any trouble. It was another 95 degree day and it didn't cool down until after midnight-sleeping was rather uncomfortable. We could try to cool down the tent by letting in mosquitoes-not a good choice to have to make. It was really wild to camp out on the island, roughing it. We cooked dinner in the back of my boat so as not to start a fire in the woods, and read storied by head lamps for a few hours.

Our birding list included Great Blue Herons, Green Herons, Two Bald Eagles (one immature, one adult), a Perigrin Falcon, Swallows, a Yellow Warbler, Cormerants, several types of Gulls, a Tern, Kingfishers, and a Harris Hawk. We found a swallow at Lock 24 which had been tangled in fishing line and was hanging upsidedown on the concrete wall in the channel. We found a place to shore and climbed around to get it. We could not get the line of his leg without hurting him, so we cut it as close as we could to his leg in the hopes that he could pick it off eventually. At least it would not get caught on anything. He just laid in my hand as we worked at it, and he had a flat, wedge shaped little head. He seemed very happy to fly away at any rate. We saw a muscrat too, and about a million water chestnuts, which are another invasive species, a floating water plant which drops spiky nuts which float down river. We need to come up with some way of harvesting them or the whole canal will be impassable in a few years.

We saw two trains go over a bridge right over our heads, and an abandoned stone railroad bridge that was just beautiful-it must have been something when the huge steam engines were going over it. We stopped at Cross Lake to swim on an island, it was just perfect-it had to be 95 degrees out and the water was clean and cool with a beach made of tiny seashells, millions of them. We spent an hour just farting around in the water, it was a much needed break.

We got in at noon Friday in Liverpool at Onondaga State Park. My friend Rosanne came to pick us up, and we made it in time for Cullen's birthday party the next day. We were not as sore as I thought we would be, and I was ready to go back out again the next day. We are definately doing this again next year.