Troop 163 of Shoemakersville went on another excursion recently. Our latest trip took us to Valley Forge National Park in Valley Forge, PA. A short drive from our Berks County home, it is none the less a place where many of us probably have never been before, I know I have never visited.
Valley Forge is the area where the Continental Army camped out over the winter during the Revolutionary War. The encampment began being populated in December of 1777. The first task was to build shelters for the soldiers and a tidy sum was offered to the group that had their shelter done first. Many replicas of the cabins are represented there.
Instead of taking my DSLR on the ride, I decided to take my Nikon Coolpix L10. I got the point and shoot camera for free with rebates I received when I purchased my photo printer. It seemed like a natural choice for this trip and I’m glad I took it. It’s easy to use and I could have took some shots while riding. My son Danny used it to take some of the photos, another plus.
I mentioned to a friend that we were going to the park and were going to cycle around the outside trail, he replied ‘good luck’ with the hills. He was right. Some of the hills I had to walk my bike up. So did some of the boys, so I wasn’t too ashamed. What goes up must come down, however. The ride down the hills were pretty good if your bike happened to be equipped with good brakes. One of the boy’s bikes didn’t, as we found out later. He couldn’t maneuver one of the curves and crashed. After tending to the boy, I’ll leave the graphic details out, we rounded up the others and made our way back to the welcome center.
Our day was cut somewhat short but we were running out of time anyway. The leaders had previously planned an overnight and I would probably recommend it for the time. To stop and take in all the history does take up some riding time but riding gets you through the park much quicker. Another one of those places to put on the ‘have to do it again’ list.