Out There: Stories from the Woods

Sitting around the house on Sunday afternoon, my wife and I quickly became restless. We just started to binge-watch a series on the History Channel, The Secrets of Skinwalker Ranch, and we needed to get out to stretch our legs.

We are trying to plan a weekend camping trip around the same time as the Flaming Foliage Festival so we decided to take a drive to Hyner Run to scope out the best camping spots. Hurry! There are only a few left!

We haven’t gone to many places since COVID and purchasing our first house. Our road trips have remained entirely within the state, out of choice. Those who know my wife and I very well are aware that when we take a road trip, we are out for weeks exploring places out west or in the south.

This day we went up the road to Renovo just for a little bit of relaxation and sight-seeing.

I told my wife about Heavy’s Mountain View, but I remembered it as Fibber’s Tavern. I usually attribute this as the half-way point to Renovo. Sadly I was never able to sit in, eat, and drink at either Fibber’s or Mountain View.

We drove into the village of Hyner and up to Hyner Run State Park. It brought back memories when Rich Wykoff and I gave a brief presentation on the CCC Camp that used to be there. It was easy to drive around the camping loop and was nice to see the out-of-state license plates from campers.

After traveling through Hyner, we drove further into Renovo. I really like driving into Renovo, there’s just something very neat about driving into town when you go past the red rock fossil area, North Bend, and then Farwell. I think it is the view of the mountains all around hugging the little borough that makes the view into town unique.

In the Fall, I typically do a lot of sports broadcasting of Football and Soccer with The Record/therecord-online. I always felt that I was “left out” because I did not own any Bucktail apparel to celebrate the team. I had known for a long time that Dollar General sold apparel, so I was able to pick up a nice shirt to wear on game day.

We did not stay around Renovo for too long as we heard about the possibility for bad storms in the late afternoon. But we did stop off for ice cream and a quick bite to eat at the Lion’s Den in Hyner.

It wasn’t until we were home for an hour when we heard the first rumbles of thunder off in the distance. We were born and raised in the Lehigh Valley area south of Allentown, so one of the local phenomena we enjoy listening to are the thunder rumbles working their way up and down the hills surrounding us.

About a half hour later, some time around 7:30pm, a tornado warning came across our phones and then we saw it: the ominous, large green clouds overcoming our home on the hill. Though the wind was not as intense as the warnings made it sound, it was a scary sight. Later that night we learned about the wires and trees down in the Avis and Woolrich areas knocking out the power to much of Gallagher Township just up the road from our home.

We thought that Sunday was going to be a pretty regular, normal day. Little did we know, the day would turn into a fairly eventful, interesting, and nerve-ending evening that will long be unforgettable.

Keep your eyes on the skies.