Friday afternoon trip leader Wil took an extended lunch hour and headed to Lake Loramie State Park. He had the group camping area reserved for OHCRA and their monthly outing. Lake Loramie is one of the original feeder lakes for the Miami-Erie Canal system. It was built in 1844-45 and turned into a state park in 1949. Lake Loramie derived its name from the famous French-Canadian trader, Peter Loramie, who in 1769 established a trading post at the mouth of Loramie Creek near the west end of what is now Loramie Reservoir.
Wil quickly set up his and Gloria's camp. As he was finishing up, in drives Tony. After a brief chat Wil headed back to work, having to close the shop at 9:00pm. On the way out of the campground he past Tom who was driving in. Tom and Tony sat up their gear then enjoyed the warm, 81 degree but very, very, windy, spring day. They soon headed to town and found the Fort Loramie hardware store, then to a local pub for food. Picking up some firewood on the way back to camp was easy as lots of the locals were selling it.
Around 8:00p.m. Gloria showed up and the three sat around and talked. The 9:30 hour brought in Ted and not long after, Wil came bouncing in, after a long, hard days work. The wind finally died down and a warm inviting campfire was shared until midnight. Around 5:30a.m. a quick thunderstorm blew through with very bright lightening. Not much rain fell but it did stay on the misty-drizzly side for the next few hours.
Since no tarps were erected the night before, Tony went to the open air laundry room and turned it into a kitchen. The other four campers soon migrated to the dry shelter. The rain did end but the clouds stayed out all day.
The shuttle soon commenced, headed for the small crossroads community of Rumley. The three canoers and one kkkayaker were paddling Loramie Creek. They could only go approximately three miles on the creek before it changed to Lake. It was the first time the club has paddled Loramie Creek since 1985. The goal of some members of the club is to paddle every "paddleable" waterway in Ohio. There are still many more to conquer.
The wind was picking up, averaging 10-15 mph and as always, they had to paddle into the wind. But only for 5.5 lake miles. Poor Ted was dying. Said something about his canoe not being a lake canoe and having to fight hard to stay on course. There was a geocache on the lake that is accessible only by boat. Tony and Wil went to find it while Ted and Tom continued on to camp. The geocache was at some old tree stumps, trees that were submerged when the lake was created. The largest stump, which seemed the most likely place to hold the cache, had three goose eggs on it. The second stump had eight duck eggs on it. Great places for a nest and the protection of eggs from predators. Not wanting to disturb them too much, the cache was not found. The two geocachers did find one on Blackberry Island on the opposite shore.
Back at camp, the four paddlers sat and relaxed tired muscles that had to work overtime with the windy conditions. Gloria came back and told them of a master gardener's class she sat in on. She shared some gardening secrets and showed the door prize she won. A multi tooled pruning set. The day was still windy but no more rain fell since morning. Supper was started early with Wil and Gloria's slumgullion stew being warmed in a dutch oven. Gloria also made some wonderful braided bread. Tom cooked deer back strap meat and Tony contributed asparagus. Even with five adults eating, there were leftovers. Man the clubs eats well.
Ted and Tom had other commitments and headed down the road leaving just Gloria, Tony and Wil. Hopping in the car, the three went looking for more geocaches. At dark they burnt the rest of the firewood and relaxed while shooting the breeze. The weather forecast was calling for 100 % chance of rain for Sunday so it was planned to get up early and break camp.
Sunday morning it did rain hard but cleared enough to pack up. Gloria and Wil were on the road by 8:45a.m. Tony was left all alone with his morning tea and song birds singing in the damp, spring air.
Things they learned over the weekend consisted of Tom, having had both hips replaced, sometimes falls down. But it wasn't clear if it was because of the hips or something else. Ted really hates to paddle on lakes, especially into a strong wind. Wil just can not wait until retirement when every weekend will be his and not the companies. Tony likes the second night camping because it's clean underwear changing night. And finally Gloria is a very fine cook who makes wonder food and is very good company.
Another nice outing attended by die hard canoers who love being on the water and camping. There have been better weekends, weather wise, but as OHCRA members like to say, "A bad day canoeing beats a good day at work."
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