Princess of the Woods So Wild

The temperature was expected to drop to around freezing on Wednesday night. When the temps are cool, the bugs are laid low, including gnats, which can be bothersome to the deep woods backpacker.

So, with a chilly night on tap, my husband and I had a nice breakfast (spaghetti for him, leftover shrimp for me!), packed up our gear in the morning, and by 1:15, we were backpacking into the campsite we call Pine Glen, deep in the woods of Sproul State Forest.

We were driving in on the access road, when a song came on the radio. You know how it goes. You're bopping along. You're enjoying the tune. And then you get that "last song on the radio" thing that happens. You carry that song right with you into the woods!

And so it was that my husband and I left our car, singing the song Somebody's Watching Me, which had been the last song we'd heard on the radio. "Sounds like Michael Jackson," my husband said. And it did. But it also sounded like somebody else. I couldn't think who. "I can't think of who does that song," I said. "I think it starts with an R. Or a T." Hmm.

But we didn't have the Internet with us, as we don't have cell phones, and even if we did, you wouldn't probably get reception way out here! So I put it on search in my brain. Went back over the lyrics. Starts with an R, my brain said, again.

It was a beautiful afternoon in the woods, and spring is not as far along up there as it is further south where we live. The pollen and maple seeds that have been drifting through the air here and leaving lots of green stuff on the car are somewhat less advanced there.

So the air was clearer. And on this visit, there wasn't even a whiff of smoke! (Last time we were there, we ended up in the middle of a controlled burn, managed by the Game Commission; we hiked out amid smoke.)

We spent the afternoon at our campsite, and then decided to head up to a tiny pond we know for an hour or two. The pond was smaller than before, but there was still water in it, and some amount of motion from newts and whatever else was living in it. We spotted large tracks along the edge, in the water, that were either elk or bear. Something big!

Along the pond, there are many evergreens. There were ferns everywhere, and I happened upon a fern wearing a feather as a fur coat! Wow! And under the trees, I discovered some little golden rosettes.

I am not sure what they actually are, but they looked like golden crowns to me. I think they are from the trees. So I placed a crown atop this fern, who in my mind I christened the Princess of the Woods. Doesn't she look fetching in her finery, in her fur coat and crown?

I took my pictures, and had a good laugh over it. "You PUT that feather on there, didn't you?" my husband accused me. But I didn't. I swore I didn't! The feather was there when I got there. I had a hand in the crown, but not the gown!

And then I had to bid farewell to the Princess as we headed back to our campsite for the evening. You may see a photo of our neat campsite in the extras. My husband's tent is on the left. Mine is on the right. My backpack is actually inside the tent, and the tent is huge enough (it's a three-man tent) that it swallows it right up!

We sat and listened to music for hours, and put up lanterns, and I added a set of blue Christmas lights to the front of my tent. It looked festive, as dusk fell, with all of the lamps lit. "Where's my owl?" my husband asked, cheekily. Little did we know, the night would answer our question.

In the back woods, snacks are everything. We'd picked up some Ghirardelli chocolate bunnies on deep discount at Big Lots last week. They had an Easter clearance rack for 90% off. The Ghirardelli bunnies ended up 3 for 10 cents. Let me tell you, there is nothing so fine as a milk chocolate caramel brownie rabbit, eaten in the wilderness! Oh my!

As I finally got ready to head into my tent around 11 p.m., which is really pretty good for a bedtime in the woods, we heard a loud ruckus: the breathy squeal of elk, followed by the howls and yips and barks of coyotes. Clearly, the Wild Hunt continues through these parts, though you seldom see the players involved. And oddly, that was all we ever heard of them!

Around 2:30 in the morning, though, the owl put in its appearance. In fact, it sat on the tree right above our campsite. "WHOOOOO!!! WHOOOOO!!!!!!" it said. And it said it a bunch more times: "WHOOO!!!! WHOOO????" And then it went silent (thank goodness, actually, as it would have been impossible to sleep with that sound going on, it was that loud).

Our high for the day on Wednesday was around 59 degrees F, but our overnight low was 29. I'd thought to put all of our potted plants in our garage before we'd left the house, and I was glad I did, as some of our area got frosted on this night.

And that concludes our first day's adventure in the big woods. Tune in tomorrow for the Miracle of the Chocolate Rabbit, the answer to Name Who Sang That Tune, and Little Moose's Big Adventure!

We have two soundtrack songs for this day's stories. One, for the Princess of the Woods, with her fine chapeau, I've selected Prince's Raspberry Beret. And for the campsite with an owl hooting at 2:30 in the morning, here are the Who, with Who Are You?