Picnic Tables on the Dock, Prince Gallitzin

It was another lovely summer day in a long string of beautiful days, and we decided at the last minute that I would take Friday off. There were many places we talked about going, but we didn't want to drive too far and waste the lovely cool morning in the car rather than outdoors. So we packed a few sandwiches and drinks in the cooler, grabbed our daysacks and our chairs, our swimsuits and our hiking shoes, and headed for Prince Gallitzin, a state park that is about an hour from our home.

On the way, we stopped for a short hike near Tyrone, hiking back up a shady, green hollow and eventually settling into our chairs near one of the largest fields of milkweed I may have ever seen in my life. We were hoping for butterflies, and we even saw a few. One black spicebush swallowtail showed up, looking well dressed in its polka-dot pajamas. A pair of great spangled fritillaries kept us well entertained, playing a game of tag through the fields, but never stopping. When we hiked out to leave, they seemed to follow us back down the hollow, posing finally for me to photograph them just before we reached the car.

From there we continued on to Prince Gallitzin, a state park that surrounds Lake Glendale, a 1,635-acre lake with 26 miles of shoreline (according to the park's Web site). We had a quick picnic, practically inhaling our sandwiches, and I found a child's toy, an abandoned big-wheel mini-car, on the picnic table, which the Crittergators had great fun playing with. We even ousted the current occupant, a small worm or caterpillar, and boosted those big wheels, taking them along home with us for future adventures. (What can I say? Finders keepers, losers weepers!)

The high point of the day was our little hike down along the lake, followed by a refreshing swim at Muskrat Beach in water that was soft as silk. Only a few boats were out and about, so the lake was relatively quiet. More milkweed was growing along the shore, or maybe I should say had been growing (past tense), as the plants were covered in more milkwood tussock moth caterpillars than I have ever seen in one place in my entire life. The caterpillars themselves look like they are covered in orange and black yarn; the milkweed plants, covered in nose-to-tail caterpillars, appeared to have been yarn-bombed. The plants themselves had been eaten down to a nub.

As we walked along the dock on the way to our swim, I admired a pair of picnic tables situated perfectly on the docks. The clouds in the sky were mirrored on the lake, and it almost seemed the picnic tables were floating, floating. Floating on water? Floating on sky? Outside of time, outside of place. There wasn't really anywhere else I had to be, so I stopped and gave them a long glance. It was hard to leave there. I didn't want to. I wanted to sit and look at those tables on the lake while time rolled away. What else are summer afternoons for, if not this, my friends?

The song: Otis Redding, Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay.

Sittin' in the morning sun
I'll be sittin' when the evening comes
Watching the ships roll in
Then I watch them roll away again, yeah

I'm sittin' on the dock of the bay
Watchin' the tide roll away, ooh
I'm just sittin' on the dock of the bay
Wastin' time . . .

P.S. I met the man who would later become my husband at a laundromat in State College, PA, in August of 1986. He was from the Johnstown area. For our second date, he brought me to Prince Gallitzin for my very first visit, and we enjoyed a canoe adventure on the lake. In one of the far corners of this lake, in a canoe, we shared our very first kiss ever (the first of MANY), on a lovely late-summer afternoon. :-)