Poland Spring Campground

We hear an awful lot of fish stories here at Poland Spring Campground.  In the office, at the lake, over a cup of morning coffee and around the crackling campfire, fisherman 6 to 96 love to tell tales of the one that got away!

Tami likes to tease, telling them that seeing is believing.  And guess what?  They brought her proof!

Those are some nice looking fish boys!  Great job!

Dale and his wife Mary camped with us for a month this year.  Whenever Dale goes missing, we know exactly where he is . . . out in the middle of the lake somewhere!

This year, he reported averaging three fish a day, catching 21 in the first two days alone!

His wife stopped counting half way through the month.  She couldn’t keep up.

Don’t worry though, he assured me there’s plenty left for the rest of us!

Just ask his daughter,

And his grandson with his first fish!

A chip off the old block!  Look at that smile . . .

Dale told Tami he mostly caught 12 - 14 inch bass.

That’s a beauty!

And last but not least, here’s one of the Emery boys with his supper

I hear tell they taste pretty good over the campfire, but I think I’ll stick with lily pads.

Jeff and Debbie Richards gave Tami some awesome wildlife photos this week . . .

Here’s an adult eagle with its baby

Right now, the baby eagle is all over the lake, so he’s hard to find.  Especially since he blends into the trees so well.

Here’s a great shot of a turtle sunning himself

Can you see the dragonfly sunning himself on the turtle’s back?

And here are the fox pictures I promised.  This little guy came trotting through the sites in the middle of the quiet week, right by Jeff and Debbie’s camper

He made his way to the edge of the volleyball court and laid in the sun.

Kind of cute, huh?

Hey campers!!  Maxwell here!

Look at these cool pictures Tami took of the Mom loon feeding the baby loon  yesterday!

Mama reached up high to stretch her wings.  Feeding babies is hard work!

After the loons moved out of sight, Tami was about to leave when I hollered, “Look up there! Is it a plane?  Superman?”

The eagle!  Tami kept her camera trained on him, hoping he’d dive for a fish or two.  But he must not have seen anything good to eat, because just like the loon family, he moved out of sight too.

One of our campers reported seeing the fox sun himself on the volleyball court this morning.  Jeff (the camper) and Myndi (Tami’s sister) both got some pictures of him.  Tami’s going to try and get copies so she can post them.

Things sure have been pretty quiet this week.  I can’t wait for our Fall Special people to come back tomorrow for weekend #2!

It’s awfully quiet during the weekdays! The trees are just starting to turn, and the nights are cool.  I can hear the loons calling back and forth at night, the chipmunks are gathering nuts and seeds all day long and Tami’s seen a fox in the driveway.

All the Fall Special campers checked in last weekend and we’re looking forward to having them the next five weeks.  Paula volunteered to run a dart tournament Saturday and we showed the movie RV for the kids.  I love that movie!  Especially the part where Robin Williams has his motor home stuck on the peak of the mountain road, and he has both hands on the windshield wipers while he’s jumping up and down, up and down, trying to force it over the edge  . . .

It was so humid last Saturday, Tami and Ben took Cookie down to the lake for a swim after lunch.  There, they were lucky enough to see Mama loon teaching her baby how to catch fish!  They were only about a hundred yards off shore!   It was really cool.

Mama would dive, coming back up with a fish.  She swished it around in the water until the baby (on the left) came over.  Tami said she was kind of far away, but it looked like the mother loon would let the fish go just before the baby got there, and the baby would snatch it back out of the water. Ever since then, Tami keeps going down to the lake with her bigger camera, hoping to get some better pictures to post here.

This year, the loon parents lost their first set of eggs.  Luckily, they were able to re-nest and the little one you see above was born right around the Fourth of July Weekend.  We’ve all been watching him pretty closely hoping he’d survive.  Baby loons have to be careful of snapping turtles and hungry eagles!

Now the rush is on for Mama and Papa loon to teach him everything he knows before ice begins to form on the lake!  Tami and I will try to keep tabs on him and keep you posted.

On the schedule today was story time, water balloon volleyball, ceramics, adult volleyball, capture the flag, darts tournament and ice games!  My favorite thing was making noisemakers for the

Labor Day Parade!

There were pin wheels . . .  Red, white and blue streamers . . .  Patriotic hats . . .

Debbi handed out some wicked loud whistles that had all the parents cringing

And then they were off to circle the campground!

I’m not sure how the little one below slept through it all.  You could hear this parading crew from the lake!

It was a great, end-of-the summer weekend!  There were times when Tami and I thought we were seeing double . . .

And there were lots of cute moments too -

(I always wondered how the campground stayed so clean!)

But now our recreation program is done for the summer.   Sigh.

While Tami, Debbi and Bryant are busy planning the theme weekends for 2009, you can still enjoy some quiet fall camping, you know!  Cool, crisp nights, the call of the loon, friends toasting marshmallows with friends . . .

Fall camping can be a lot of fun!

Maxwell Moose here with all my friends . . .

We had a great time today!

There were egg and water games in the playing field . . . we made lobsters and lobster bouys at arts and crafts. Then we headed down to the playing field where Debbi (far right) and Bryant were shooting off water ballons with help from our friend Linda.

They shot them low, for the little ones

and higher for the bigger kids!

Look how wet you get~

If you catch one without it hitting the ground or breaking, you get a free ice cream! If you don’t believe me, ask these guys!

Great job you two!

Heeeeeey! Bryant! What are you up to??

As if they weren’t wet enough already!!

At 7:30 tonight everyone gathered at the office for a light parade around the campground!

What a whole lotta flashing and blinking and bright colors! Wicked cool.

The good news is, the fun isn’t over yet! Most of my little buddies are staying until Monday, so we have another whole day of fun stuff planned for Sunday too!

Mighty Moose here!

What a super fantastic weekend! Debbie and Bryant made Get Away Hydro Boats, hero vehicles with coffee clay, capes, masks and helmets too! We found the missing store treasure, and tested hero water skills at the lake.

Heros were found in every corner of the campground! Here’s Bumble Bee from the Transformers

Super B!

and Super Princess

Hero’s were tested to see if they could tie up their villians super tight

They were asked to run faster than a speeding bullet

jump higher than the tallest building

and perform daring feats

Some showed off moves that had even Cat Woman jealous!

When Flash’s arch enemies, The Rogues, appeared

our super heros attacked back with water balloons and won! Poland Spring Campground was safe for all campers once again.

We celebrated with a victory hayride!

Here’s the Poland Spring Campground Justice League

On Saturday night Paul from Mad Science performed his Spin, Pop, Boom show!

As our camper families checked out today, they all told us what a great time they had this weekend!

A big shout out to Heart Girl, Super Brody, Super Sleuths, and all the Super Hero’s who showed off their moves to me, The Flash, Wonder Woman and Cat Woman!

We all had an amazing time!

Come back and see us real soon . . .

Whoa!  Halloween the second time around was just as good as the first!

This time, Debbie and Bryant planned some Halloween games in the field, a pool tournament, horseshoe tournament, water balloon slingshot, a nature walk through the freaky forest, making monster jugs and a

Witch’s Stew Eating contest!

We had many eager participants, young

and “slightly older” too!

Everyone had a pretty good time, but I think they all needed a good shower afterward!

6:30PM Saturday was the Witching Hour!   Family by family, they arrived at the office

There were Batman’s and brides, chickens and goblins, fishermen and farmers!

Finally it was time for Alex to give the Trick or Treating rules

Then they were off while Tami, Debbie, Alex and Bryant set up for the Halloween party!  We had two different ring tosses, water target practice, darts

tattoos, a bean bag toss and Witch Kabobs!  Yum!

There was plenty of laughter to go around and lots of precious moments

but

sadly

Halloween Week is over.

There’s no time to pout though . . . we’ve got to plan for Super Hero Tryout Weekend!!!

You should have seeeeeen all the kids who showed up for trick or treating!

There were Barbie’s, cowboys, ghouls, witches, fairies, super heros, goblins, ghosts, dancers, and more:

After trick or treating the kids and I went back to the store for a Halloween Party! We played all kinds of games like Pin The Nose on the Jack-o-lantern, Fishing for Spiders and a sponge toss

The line to put your face in the clown was just as long as the line to toss the sponges!

Here’s Bryant showing off his favorite prizes

And look who I found wandering around the party . . .

The Burger King Man! Tami thought he was kind of creepy looking . . .but I said, “Gee Tami, have you looked in the mirror lately?

Then I ran away before she could yell at me!

Tami told these three they were a couple weekends too early:

I wonder if they’d let me borrow their costumes for Super Hero Weekend? I want to be

da-da-daaaaaah -

Suuuuu-per

Moose!’

(Psssst? Do Superman and Spiderman reeeeeeeally have orange vampire teeth? I’ve got to get me some of those!)

After the party Dave and his gathering of ghouls scared campers silly in the haunted house for just over an hour!! Tami and I could hear the screams from the office. We didn’t exactly get pictures of that - we were kind of, sort of, hiding in the back room of the store. Maybe we’ll be brave enough next Saturday ’cause we’re doing Halloween all over again!

On Sunday afternoon, Bryant and Alex’s Shakespeare in the Park troupe performed MacBeth. It was awesome!

The final fight scene was so intense, Tami forgot to take pictures!!

We were really lucky to have them perform right in our own playing field. We hope they “break a leg” at their remaining performances in the Poland area . . .

I think I might try out for next year’s troupe ’cause they look like they’re having a lot of fun. Do you think they’ll need a moose for Mid Summer Night’s Dream?

Maxwell here!

It’s been raining A Lot lot this week, so Debbie and Bryant did a bunch of indoor things, and also some indoor/outdoor activities like rain painting, puddle jumping, water balloon games and boat building

Aren’t they creative? They tested pretty well in that puddle too!

Today we had things like Halloween games, watermelon innard eating contest, horseshoes, arts and crafts and a toilet paper mummy making game:

Aren’t they cute!???

Trick or treating starts in one hour! One! O - N -E !!!!

I can’t wait! I can’t wait! Where are all the kids???

Come back later for some party pictures!

P.S. The pictures of Marcus and Angeliques performance last week are coming soon too! I promise. And today, one of the campers gave Tami some great fishing photos. We’ll get those up here too . . .