We completed our first trip out in our NTU pup this past weekend (9/11-13) to French Creek State Park. We were originally supposed to leave on Thursday 9/10, but they were predicting a few inches of rain possible and our house currently does not do well with a lot of rain, so we delayed leaving by a day. Since we were going the day after our reservation started, we did not have to wait until the check-in time of 3pm to get there. We got to our site at about 1:30pm and got set up and ate lunch. In the process, I learned a valuable lesson (one which I knew, but forgot to do). That is, chock the wheels before detaching from the TV. It only rolled about 8 inches, and luckily it was AWAY from the TV. That was a few seconds of "OH $#@^!" followed quickly by a "Whew!". We cooked both dinners on the fire - burgers Friday night and camping Nachos Saturday night. It was just the meat (skirt steak) of the Nachos that we cooked on the fire. Everything else we cooked on the stove. Enjoyed the park on Saturday. Spent some time at each of two lakes and saw a bald eagle in flight, which is always an awesome sight. We also visited a nearby National Historic Site - Hopewell Furnace. A lot of the buildings were closed, but we were able to walk the grounds and look through some windows. Took our time tearing down Sunday since we had until 3pm to be out. A few instances of realizing that we needed something that we had packed in the pup, which was already down, latched, and locked. Got home and unpacked without any issues. One trip down, three more to go this year...
The Park service description of the site was rather poor so below is a better one taken from Wiki. Iron and steel making is something our families were very involved with (mining side) and I love industrial history. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to navigation Jump to search Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site in southeastern Berks County, near Elverson, Pennsylvania, is an example of an American 19th century rural "iron plantation," based a charcoal-fired cold-blast iron blast furnace. The significant restored structures include the furnace group (blast furnace, water wheel, blast machinery, cast house and charcoal house), plus the ironmaster's house, company store, blacksmith's shop, barn and several worker's houses. Hopewell Furnace was founded c. 1771 by ironmaster Mark Bird, son of William Bird, who had been one of Pennsylvania's most prominent ironmasters. The site's most prosperous time was during the 1820-1840 period with a brief return to significant production during the American Civil War. In the mid 19th century changes in iron making, including a shift from charcoal-fueled furnaces to anthracite-fueled steel mills rendered smaller furnaces like Hopewell obsolete. The site discontinued operations in 1883. In 1938 the property was designated Hopewell Village National Historic Site under the authority of the Historic Sites Act, thereby becoming one of the earliest cultural units of the National Park System. Today, Hopewell Furnace consists of 14 restored structures, 52 features on the List of Classified Structures, and a total of 848 mostly wooded acres. Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site is located in the Hopewell Big Woods and bordered by French Creek State Park on three sides and State Game Lands 43 on the south side, which preserves the lands the furnace utilized for its natural resources.
Looks and sounds like an interesting place to visit. I’ve been to a large number of state parks in PA, but must have missed this place. On my list of places to visit now. Glad you had a good trip.
Thanks for that! It is indeed a better description. Excellent! Glad I could tip you off to a new place to visit. Since you're coming a ways to visit it, I would recommend waiting until the site is fully opened again so you can get the full experience - hopefully next Summer. The park also has a lot of really good hiking trails, but not many of them are suitable for young kids. Most of them are rated "more difficult" and one is rated "most difficult".
