campground envy 2: Branbury State Park

When I was looking for campground hosting opportunities, I first tried Branbury State Park, a very popular family and swimming state park. They wanted to have us be their hosts, and I was excited because they have shower facilities (and electricity which isn't as important), but when they found out we wanted to live in our yurt, they said "Oh, we don't have room for that," which means, "That's weird and you're not coming here."

Off we went to Moosalamoo who were so thrilled to have us! I wonder why. Anyway, to make our lives sad, we went to Branbury Saturday to check it out and see if Mom and John should suffer with
us at Moosalamoo, or if it's worth it to make

Branbury the homebase while they visit. Naturally, it's freaking beautiful. The campsites are opposite a ridiculously busy beach/lake/state park area that was swarming with people. The lake is stunning and my mom has to paddleboard on it while she's here. The lake runs up against mountains, so it's very reminiscent of the Adirondacks which makes sense. The pictures don't do it justice, but I tried.

The campground is lovely, winding up a hillside, complete with gigantic rock outcroppings and

waterfalls cascading along sites. Nearly all the sites are big enough for the yurt, and many have lean-tos, something we miss very much from our time at Hyde. To be honest, it made me a little sick to go there. We just kept saying idiotic things like, "Well, our campground has privacy" and "Well, this is farther away from Bread Loaf," but it's probably 5-10 more minutes by car and it's paradise out there. We had ice cream and a snack at this little shop before heading back to Hyde.

Tom, the Minnesotan camper (who bears a striking resemblance to Bryan's dad and not just because we miss him) let us know that there was music at the Ripton Community House that night, so we invited him to join us at the school picnic at the Robert Frost's farm, which is called the Homer Noble Farm (owner Frost bought it from). We had dinner there and checked out Frost's cabin. It's usually locked, but they opened it up and we were able to go in and see the way he lived when he was there. It's a beautiful cabin and Bryan said it's his dream cabin.

Round Mountain of Santa Fe

The music at the Ripton Community Coffee House was a wonderful, very eclectic mix of steel guitars, bagpipe, accordion, and bongo drums. One guy played the bagpipe or the trumpet while simultaneously playing the accordion. They'd be playing a sort of sweet, gentle song, and then unexpectedly break out into bongo drums and bagpipe. I'm really glad we went and Katelynn even had a Paul Rudd sighting there. Rare stuff.

Then it was off to the strange mating ritual called the Bread Loaf Eighties (not old ladies) Dance.