Between a Railroad and a River

A few days ago, Pearls Before Swine ran a comic strip where Goat tells Pig and Rat he’s going camping the next day. “What does that involve?” asks clueless Pig.

Cynical Rat answers. “It’s where you deprive yourself of all the nice things you have for no particular reason.”

Last weekend, I went camping with my family on private property near the borders of Juanita and Perry County. My sister had found the Juanita River Escape on social media last year. “You will have the 3 acres to yourselves. Boat access to the Juanita River.” Amenities included picnic tables, a campfire ring, free wood (bring your own axe), and a portable toilet.

“You’re not making this place sound any better,” sniffed my niece Sarah when I mentioned the port-a-john. She’s not so keen on roughing it. But she came along anyway. We wound up with twenty campers staying for the weekend, and other family members coming for the day.

The brochure also tactfully mentioned “enjoy the free train views and whistles.” Since I had stayed at this campsite once before, I knew what it should say was “located next to an active train track.”

I left work early on Friday afternoon to head west to the campsite, taking my nephew Beriah with me. His family was coming in two cars that were filled to capacity, and I didn’t really want to be at the lonely campsite by myself.

After driving past Harrisburg, we drove on secondary roads through farm country until turning onto a small road and then a barely visible lane through a meadow. We followed muddy ruts through an underpass, passed a narrow field, and before us was the river, lined with trees. I drove down past the campfire ring and selected a grassy spot to park my Nissan, right next to a large open tenting spot.

Beriah was helping me set up the two tents I had brought along when the first train rumbled past. “Over a hundred cars! That’s a lot more than the trains we see at home,” Beriah said. (The trains that rumble though our town of Leola serve a few local businesses.) When the second one came past, Beriah counted again. “Two hundred cars!” There were two tracks, running in opposite directions, and a train would come by as often as several times an hour. Each train usually had at least two engines, hauling coal, oil, and freight cars with familiar names like UPS and FEDEX. Once we even saw a whole trainload of John Deere tractors.

As more campers arrived, we went out to the end of lane to make sure the others could find their way in. We had picked a great weekend for camping— the long evenings of late June, and the temperature was perfect.

The breeze had picked up by evening. I worked on prying apart frozen hot dogs for supper (I always freeze everything possible when going camping) as my nephews worked on getting the fire going. I learned some of the boys love building fires and they faithfully tended the campfire all weekend long.

After a late supper, it got dark and was time for bed. I was staying with two of my older nieces in one tent while the other girls slept in another one. Before we crawled into our sleeping bags, Hannah said, “Let’s go out in the field and look at the stars.”

We crept out in the cornfield, and gazed at the stars above, while the field and woods around us lit up with fireflies— glittering lights in the darkness above and below.

Happily, the trains only went past a few times during the night. Laying close to ground, half-asleep, we’d hear the distant whistle and then the rising sounds of wheels and rushing of the train cars, suddenly roaring past, like the train would suck us up, sleeping bags, tents, and all, unwilling passengers on the mighty steel beast, carried off to distant unknown cities.

Then the train would fade away and we fell asleep again until the next train came.

The next morning, I was reading a book on the Oregon Trail in the tent when one of the children came to fetch me. “Susan! The water’s boiling for coffee, and no one else knows how to use the French press!” So my day began.

Initially I had planned to take the teenagers tubing on the river, but the day was much too cold. So instead, we all went hiking at Little Buffalo State Park, which was about a half-hour away. We followed hiking trails on the mountain side where a tornado had apparently just been through, with trails blocked by fallen trees.

Back at camp, we snacked on trail mix, and skipped stones in the river. The younger children waded in the shallows, and the older kids went swimming. “It’s about seven feet deep in the middle,” reported Corey and Beriah, after they returned from their chilly swim. Games of cornhole and spikeball went on, with pauses whenever the train roared past. My brother Andrew and his wife Marsha came for the afternoon, and Andrew took their daughter, Eva, wading in a river for the first time.

Adding to the hobo ambience, my oldest brother played his banjo, and his daughter played her fiddle in the underpass tunnel.

That night after taco mountain pies, we told stories around the campfire. My brother-in-law, Lamar, told us how he accidentally swallowed a yarn needle during a craft class in school. Somehow— and fortunately— the needle stayed eye-down the whole way through.

That night we saw a huge bug we didn’t recognize. “Look the mandibles on that thing,” said Tim. We watched in amazement as the winged creature crawled toward the light of the campfire, and died in the ashes.

Later Sarah would find another one of the strange insects on her leg and I found one on my shirt (pictured below. Using this photo I later identified the large insect as an aquatic dobsonfly during its brief adult life. )

The next morning, we were still cleaning up from breakfast when Mom and Dad arrived for the day, along with my sister Joanne and her youngest boys. “I’m glad Bennet gets to see a train,” said Mom when the first train rumbled past after their arrival. “He was talking about seeing trains on the way here.”

Since Mom and Dad had brought sandwiches for lunch, that meant the rest of us could start packing up ice chests, taking down tents, and rolling up sleeping bags. Even if the children weren’t ready to leave, I think all of us grown-ups were ready to return to the world of running water and carpeted floors.

We’ve already reserved the campsite for next year.