Beebe Hill State Forest Fire Tower Climb

As we planned our trip to Beebe Hill State Forest and surrounding area for the Empire State Mountain Unicycle Festival, I looked around at what I might do with the kids.  I found one trip report from 2010 of a hike up to the Beebe Hill Fire Tower.  That sounded perfect for us.  However I am always directionally challenged and wished for a map.  The above link also has a lot of history about the area and the Fire Tower.

When we arrived for day 1 of the Muni Festival, a park ranger was in the parking lot.  I asked him about the hike and where we should start.  Of course I asked about a map too, but he didn't have any.  After a few minutes in his truck, he brought me a hand drawn map, complete with color coding!  Thanks, Chris!  It was a big help!

We crossed Fog Hill Rd to reach the closer parking lot for the Fire Tower Hike.  There was a small kiosk and two trails.  The Fire Tower trail is to the left, further from the kiosk.

Bartlett Pond

Fire Tower Trail starts here

Blue Trail

First we followed the blue trail.  There were a couple bridges and streams.

Along the trail there was a place to register and a sign telling us it was .1 miles back to the parking lot.

Soon we needed to make a decision and knew we had to go on the red trail to reach the Fire Tower.

Towards the top we found Opal Pond.  It was pretty swampy.

We didn't notice a lean to or see the Fire Tower until we hit the clearing.  Perhaps when the leaves aren't on the trees it's possible to see the tower before reaching it.

Locked up Cabin

The tower is 60 feet.  There is small fencing on the walls of the tower.

Beebe Hill State Forest Fire Tower

Under the Tower

The view

In the tower out of the wind for a snack

At the top of the tower it was very windy!  The tower itself seemed very secure and didn't feel like it was swaying or moving at all.  Unfortunately the little one did feel scared so high up and needed reassurance staying up there and getting down.

Looking down!

We hiked up, had a snack and looked around at the cabin and shed, both closed up.  Then we walked back down the same trail.  It took us about an hour and a half total.  The hikers consisted of a four year old with short legs, a ten year old, a thirteen year old friend, a fourteen year old and myself.  The four year old needed a few rides from the teens, but did pretty well.  The ten year old did trip on the trail and needed a bandaid.  The trail does have a lot of rocks and exposed roots.  I noticed a fair amount of poison ivy as well.

Fox Hill Campground in Spencertown, NY

When planning our camping trip for the Empire State Mountain Unicycle Festival, it was hard to find any additional information on the Fox Hill Campground in Spencertown, NY beyond a phone number and a review here and there. One person talked about stopping to swim at the beach, which was helpful to know, but lacked any photographs. It was then that I decided I would at least document things from our perspective. 

Fox Hill Campground is about seven minutes from Chatham.  We went into Chatham for dinner after setting up and found a few different restaurants that all seemed pretty busy.  Finally near the turnabout there was a small sign for a restaurant called the Eatzzeria and even smaller signs for what they served:  burgers, wraps, salads, pizza, and subs.  We tried it out and had a nice chat with the owners.  They had just bought the shop and have only been open about seven weeks.  Our family had burgers, a wrap and a salad with chicken.  Everything was nicely made with good portion sizes.  There is an area to sit and eat with 3-4 tables.

At the campground everything is done on paper.  We had "reservations" but it was simply our name jotted down on a sheet of paper.  We filled in our registration on a paper ledger and were able to pay with a credit card.  It was $25 a night.  There is a small store with inexpensive treats for the kids such as 2 cent Swedish Fish, 10 cent mini candy bars and 10 cent pretzel rods.  Wood is sold too and one staff member offered us the Mule of wood for $40 and thought it would be perfect for our group.  There is also a small laundry facility and bathrooms at the office.

Near the office is beach parking and a small sandy beach on a pond. It is life guarded sometimes, but open for campers to swim at your own risk. There was nice sand and a grassy area near the sand.  It was chilly, so no one went too far out in the water.  My kids had a ball in the sand.

The playground is small and almost always occupied with the campground kids.  The playground has a teeter totter, swings, basketball hoop (bring your own ball) and chin up bar.  We didn't spend too much time there.

The majority of the sites here are permanent sites complete with fancy decking, some sheds and lawn ornaments.  We noticed one empty site and then there was the tenting area where we would stay.

Tenting Area Fox Hill Campground

The tenting area was very nice for a group tent area. There were trees and lots of shade. The corridor between the woods was rather narrow, but we made it all work. The bathhouse is right near the tent area and also the only place to park your car. The sinks had warm and cold water and there were flush toilets. The soap didn't appear to work so I left an extra bar of soap in there. Because most campers use their RVs, we had the bathhouses to ourselves. The showers were coin operated. 25 cents got you about 5 minutes of hot water. 

Bathhouse

Each campsite had a picnic table and fire pit. They all seemd rather unused. For our purposes, we had one big fire furthest from the bathhouse.  If you we had been camping at one of the tent sites and other sites were also occupied with people we didn't know, it would have felt like too close quarters. But for our group, it was perfect. 

Empire State Mountain Unicycle Campers

Car Garbage Bag

The hooks on the backs of my car seats are just too far for a Wegmans bag to reach.  The last garbage bag was a perfect one from Nike that had a drawstring handle.  We have access to far more Wegmans' bags, so I wanted to make something that would hold them.

Starting with a Wegmans bag as a guide, I cut a 16" x 16.5" rectangle out of a waterproof nylon.  I added a 9" piece of 1/4" elastic to each side seam and buttons on each side about 5.5" from the top.  I boxed the bottom corners at 2" in and left the top edge raw.

Threading the elastic though the bag handles and bringing the bag handles down to the buttons holds the bag in place.  So far so good.

Stuff Sack Tutorial

We are planning a camping trip again and will be bringing along too much stuff.  In an effort to condense some stuff, I made these stuff sacks.

Last year I created these sleeping mat toppers that made sleeping in the tent quite nice.  They are cut from fluffy memory foam which takes up a lot of space.  I stored them in garbage bags, two to a bag.  I thought a stuff sack or even a compressible stuff sack would help out.

After looking at available products and considering some dry bags we already own, I created my own stuff sacks.  Fortunately I had all the materials I needed at home.  I started with PUL waterproof material, leftover from diaper making.  Another option would have been to use nylon.  The 1" buckles I had leftover from baby carrier making days.  For the strapping, I only had a small amount salvaged from something.

To test sizing, I tried out a half sized pillowcase I had made.  It was just right when I rolled the memory foam up.

Instructions:

Cut two 14"x 24" pieces of PUL
Cut two 2.75" one inch webbing
one 1" buckle
1" webbing or ribbon, 28" long

Stitch 1" ribbon/webbing along one short edge of each 14" x 24" piece of PUL.  Because PUL doesn't fray, I didn't finish the top edges

With right sides together, insert buckles and webbing into each side seam at top

 Stitch both sides and bottom edge

Pull out corners into triangle and sew in 1.5" to make box corners (Or it could be left square)

After boxing both lower corners, the bottom should look like this

Flip stuff sack right side out and top stitch where the webbing attaches to the side seam, this encloses the raw edges and gives it more stability.

Finished stuff sack

The memory foam topper folded and then rolled

Because I only had ribbon available for the top edges, I don't feel these have quite as much stability as if I had used webbing.  However the ribbon is much cheaper and what I had available.  The ribbon does keep the PUL from stretching.

Queen Elsa Cape

My daughter had received a beautiful blue pagent dress as a gift for her birthday. It was intended to be like Queen Elsa's from the movie Frozen. I found some light blue gloves on ebay and her Cinderella dress up shoes seemed to be a good match too. A cape was the only thing missing.

I knew the dress was coming and having seen the movie a few times, I had given the cape some thought. I have made dress-up capes before, but Elsa's cape is different. It flows from the upper back rather than from the neck. 

Perusing google images helped me think more about possibilities. Because the cape wasn't going to be attached to the dress, I started thinking of it in terms of of a pinafore or vest.  Looking at the Elsa doll's cape helped too. 

We found some pretty fabric at JoAnns and I estimated I would need one yard. The fabric was 58" wide. First I cut off about 6" of the 58" width. The remaining fabric was about 36"x 54". The 36" x 6" piece was just right to go around my petite four year old's shoulders.  I folded it in half and pinned it around her. The larger 54" by 36" piece I draped around her and decided to make pleats in the back and a curve under her arms.  I also cut a curve removing one corner and did the same for the other lower edge corner. After marking everything, I used a lighter to carefully melt all the edges. 

First I sewed the pleats onto the wrong side of the 6" wide piece for the length I had marked. Then I ironed the 6" in half and tuned under the raw edge opposite the edge I had sewn the pleats onto.  The next step was to sew the turned under edge down enclosing the pleats, forming the armholes and finishing the short ends.  Finally I tried it on her again and figured out the placement for the velcro. I ended up cutting it down a bit and hot glueing a snowflake shape onto the right side. 

Mini Anniversary Cake

My in-laws are celebrating their 30th wedding anniversary today and I wanted to do something to help celebrate.  I thought a mini cake might be fun to make.

I looked through recipes and settled on this "Best White Cake Recipe."  The recipe was easy to follow and made a nice batter.  For my three mini springform pans,  I made up half a recipe.  I had a decent amount of batter leftover and filled 7 square mini cupcakes too.  The mini springforms required almost the full amount of time suggested in the recipe.  I started checking at 15 minutes, but it needed about 25.  

After baking the cakes, I cooled them briefly, then put them in the freezer on a wire rack.  My goal was to trim down one layer to be smaller than the bottom layer.  The edges did get a bit crunchy as one recipe reviewer mentioned, but it seemed ok.  There wasn't any crunchiness on the mini cupcakes.

I used the buttercream recipe at the same site. The directions were very specific and seemed to make up a nice buttercream.  It probably helped also that I cut up the butter in small pieces to allow it to warm to room temperature quickly.  I only had 6/8 of a stick left, so I cut this recipe basically in half as well.  

A little research told me that pearls are one symbol for the 30th anniversary.  I still had some pearls leftover from our Frozen themed cupcakes.  It seemed to work out for a quick cake, but certainly not my best decorating.

It was nice to find I still have some cute bakery boxes that fortunately fit the tiered mini cake perfectly.  We dropped off the cake and a card as a little anniversary surprise.

With the leftovers we sampled the cakes.  One tester felt that it is too sweet, everyone else felt it is a fine white/yellow cake.

Aunt Gracie's Bread

The recipe for Aunt Gracie's bread has been in my little recipe box for many years, but I had never tried it. The recipe has a lot of variability.  I think that discouraged me from trying initially. I didn't want to make the wrong decision.

Finally, I looked around at other similar recipes.  It is simply a sweet bread with cardamon seeds. 

From the suggestions, this is what I chose.

3 cups of milk

1 package if yeast dissolved in 1/4 cup of warm water

3 TB of butter

2 eggs

1 1/4 cup of sugar

1 rounded TB of salt

1 tsp of cardamon seeds

9 cups of flour

Heat milk, add sugar, salt and butter.  Stir until dissolves. When lukewarm, add dissolved yeast. 

Add 3 cups of four and eggs, stir well. 

Add 3 cups of flour and stir well. 

Add last 3 cups of flour, one at a time mixing until flour is well blended. Add cardamon seed with last cup of flour. Knead until non sticky but shiny. Let rise two hours or until double in size. Punch down and shape into four braided loaves.  Loaves can be placed on baking sheets or in loaf pans. Let rise 2-2 1/2 hours covered with a towel until doubled. Bake 350 degrees for 30 minutes. 

I made four loaves.  Each had four strands for a four strand braid. Two went into glass loaf pans and two on a cookie sheet. They tasted great and just like my parents remembered.