Spring Gulch – Lancaster PA

We just completed our 10 day camping vacation and what a great trip we had!

We started out on Friday June 27th at Pleasant Acres in Sussex NJ, Colin, Carrie and I got an early start to our vacation went up early Friday morning. We spent all of Friday and Saturday at PAC, this was our first time leaving on a Sunday in the past we would leave early Saturday morning. We kind of enjoyed leaving Sunday as we didn’t have to rush around getting things ready to go. We took our time Saturday getting things ready inside the trailer, outside would have to wait until Sunday morning.

That is one thing about being seasonal and doing the traveling thing, we are packing up the trailer and unpacking all in the same day where others have their trailer in the driveway at home…etc. I am not complaining about it at all we get a few extra days camping out of it in return!

Our check in at Spring Gulch wasn’t until 3 PM so we had been in no rush leaving. We hitched up around 10:15 am Sunday and began or haul to Lancaster PA. We knew this trip would be a little different from the start, the route from Sussex to Lancaster consisted mostly of country routes, no major highways at all! By car it’s about a 3 hour trip, with the trailer we add an extra hour so anticipate it being a 4 hour trip.

We downloaded directions from the Good Sam Club web site figuring that would be our best bet. Well every trip is an adventure in more ways that one and for us our adventure began a little more than an hour into our trip. Either we missed the turn for a route or something was left out of our directions but we didn’t come across one of the routes listed in our directions! Not to worry, we borrowed my Mom’s Garmin GPS. We fired it up and punched in our destination and off we go again! Well let’s say we have come pretty good at navigating narrow roads making tight turns and making our way through small streets such as those in Bethlehem PA. It seemed either the GPS system wanted us to have a real scenic ride or test our patience. Either way we made out OK and only arrive an hour behind our estimated arrival time. Of course having to stop 4 times for a “i need to go potty” break didn’t help much either. I think Colin just got a kick out of getting out of the truck and being able to go into the trailer for his potty break.

Spring Gulch was everything we expected! A very nice campground. We stayed in the upper section of the campground. The site we had was very easy to get on and provided us with plenty of room. Carrie and I kept saying that we couldn’t believe the amount of space between each site. Some campgrounds it seems they try to cram as many sites in a possible. Not here at Spring Gulch! We had neighbors on one side of us and for a short time neighbors behind us. Not once did we feel like we had been on top of each other. A definite bonus! We had an end site so on the other side of us we had the road. Our Vermont trip last year we had a “road site” and didn’t care for it. The way the sites are configured at Spring Gulch you do not feel like your “on the road”.

The only complaint, and I wouldn’t even call it a complaint, I have is the pond for fishing is way too small. I went fishing twice, caught a bass each time, but you would cast and pray that nobody else casted on top of your line. I went early one morning so it wasn’t that bad, once you have like 5 people fishing it becomes a challenge of finding an open spot to cast. Colin and I went again while SOMEBODY went shopping at the outlets for the day. Colin had more fun playing in the lake then fishing.

We made our way all around Lancaster, the GPS came in real handy for that! From going to Dutch Wonderland and all the way out to Bass Pro Shops in Harrisburg the GPS was an asset for us. Colin would shout in excitement every time he saw a horse and buggy. We took our own horse and buggy ride one day and it was a blast. Our driver was Amish and is now ‘English’. He had to be just a little over 18. We learned a lot about the Amish from him. I think the thing that surprised us the most is that a lot of the Amish in Lancaster have cell phones! Without electricity they do find ways to charge them, some use solar power and others use their kids cars! Kids Cars? yep that is correct! Around age 16 the Amish youth partake in Rumspringa. In short this is the time when one decides to be baptized Amish or leave the Amish and live like the ‘English’. During this time it is permitted to purchase a car, listen to ‘English’ music and wear ‘English’ clothing. The link I provided goes into more detail. Our driver explained a couple things he and his friends did including hooking up subwoofers and neon lights to their wagons! He was especially excited about the neon glowing lights they installed under the horses! What a sight that must have been!

We left Spring Gulch, and Lancaster PA, on Sunday July 6th and made our way back to Pleasant Acres. The trip home went a lot better. We decided to just use the GPS and had no problems. I wish we had the video camera out when we came to a bridge on 611 in Easton PA. The weight limit was 3 Tons, our trailer is around 11,000 pounds. The guard at the bridge came out waving hands and shaking her head no way are you guys crossing this bridge! LOL no worries another bridge was just down the road.

We arrived back at Pleasant Acres around 1 PM. On the way home we continued our new tradition of 4 “potty breaks”. We stopped at Burger King in Newton NJ prior to arriving at the campground. We have learned from past trips we do a lot better having something eat first before arriving.

It was great pulling into our “home” campground. Everyone was at the pool and started waving to us as we pulled in. What a great feeling to be greeted like that!

In no time at all we had the trailer back on our seasonal site and had the water hooked up. Carrie and I knew switching to this site would make things easier on us!

I could go on and on about our trip, it seems each trip just gets better and better. Not that we have had bad trips, this one just was different then the others. I am sure the next one after this will feel even better!

We will be posting photos and videos to our camping web site soon!