The menu plan is still evolving – and probably will evolve even while we are getting crispy in the sun – but here is where we are as of 6/15/16.
Saturday…………Pizza & Calzone
We are changing our process for taking MDC reservations for 2017 and will require a $10 non-refundable deposit by June 23rd, 2016.
Here’s how the reservations work. We can reserve the sites 11 months exactly prior to our arrival date. We’ve had trouble with other people taking our favorite sites, so we make the reservations on that specific day. Full payment is required when making the reservation. If we release the site more than 7 days in advance we get a refund except for $10 (hence the non-refundable deposit).
In 2015 we reserved 14 sites but ended up releasing 4 of the sites. This resulted in $40 of wasted expense. Our plan going forward is to ask for a $10 non-refundable deposit to secure a site.
For 2017 we already have deposits for six sites, shown in green below. Email me if you know for sure that you can’t come or send me $10 to reserve your site. Please act by 6/23/16. Unlike prior years I won’t reserve open sites.
I’ve been a fan of the music of James Horner since the first time I heard the music of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn in 1982. That’s long before he became famous for his soundtracks from Titanic, Braveheart, and Avatar. James Horner died in a solo plane accident on June 22nd, 2015 – a very sad day.
If you’d like to know more about James Horner, or to see a list of the 124 movies soundtracks he composed, see his bio on Wikipedia
Here are two YouTube compilations of some of his hits. Its over an hour in length and is meant to be played in the background while you are doing something else.
We love the beach! Here are some of our favorite trips from most recent to as far back as we can remember.
When Jeanne and Mark were young, both the Phillips and the Davis family used to enjoy beach trips, particularly camping at an inland campsite and spending the day at the beach. We discovered that both families spent many summers at Pine Haven Campground in Sea Isle City, NJ when Jeanne and Mark were in our mid to late teenage years. Chances are that we were camping the same week of the summer and maybe even ran into each other at the Pavilion listening to the jukebox and hanging out with the other kids. Wouldn’t that have been interesting if we knew each other in those days.
We continue our tradition, but have moved on to less rustic accommodations.
1. Sonder: The realization that each passerby has a life as vivid and complex as your own.
2. Opia: The ambiguous intensity of looking someone in the eye, which can feel simultaneously invasive and vulnerable.
3. Monachopsis: The subtle but persistent feeling of being out of place.
4. Énouement: The bittersweetness of having arrived in the future, seeing how things turn out, but not being able to tell your past self.
5. Vellichor: The strange wistfulness of used bookshops.
6. Rubatosis: The unsettling awareness of your own heartbeat.
7. Kenopsia: The eerie, forlorn atmosphere of a place that is usually bustling with people but is now abandoned and quiet.
8. Mauerbauertraurigkeit: The inexplicable urge to push people away, even close friends who you really like.
9. Jouska: A hypothetical conversation that you compulsively play out in your head.
10. Chrysalism: The amniotic tranquility of being indoors during a thunderstorm.
11. Vemödalen: The frustration of photographic something amazing when thousands of identical photos already exist.
12. Anecdoche: A conversation in which everyone is talking, but nobody is listening.
13. Ellipsism: A sadness that you’ll never be able to know how history will turn out.
14. Kuebiko: A state of exhaustion inspired by acts of senseless violence.
15. Lachesism: The desire to be struck by disaster – to survive a plane crash, or to lose everything in a fire.
16. Exulansis: The tendency to give up trying to talk about an experience because people are unable to relate to it.
17. Adronitis: Frustration with how long it takes to get to know someone.
18. Ruckkehrunruhe: The feeling of returning home after an immersive trip only to find it fading rapidly from your awareness.
19. Nodus Tollens: The realization that the plot of your life doesn’t make sense to you anymore.
20. Onism: The frustration of being stuck in just one body, that inhabits only one place at a time.
21. Liberosis: The desire to care less about things.
22. Altschmerz: Weariness with the same old issues that you’ve always had – the same boring flaws and anxieties that you’ve been gnawing on for years.
23. Occhiolism: The awareness of the smallness of your perspective
We continue a Phillip’s family tradition by camping at World’s End State Park every year. The Phillips family began this tradition in 1970 (over 45 years). The Davis family began camping with the Phillips family in 1988.
Our family camping experience extends back to the early 1960’s when both Jeanne and Mark’s families camped over the summer. In the late 1960’s and early 1970’s its very likely that Jeanne’s family and Mark’s family were at the same campground at the same time and didn’t even know it, being teenagers at the time and unaware of each other’s existence. Both families camped at Pine Haven campground near Sea Isle City, NJ usually the third week of July.
The boys also have quite a bit of Boy Scout camping training; Tying knots, splitting wood, knowing how to start a fire, cooking, and wet weather preparation have been key skills towards having a great time.
Every year we tell stories about Papa Phillips, pictured in the center of this picture in his final year camping. Papa had very specific rules that we follow to this day. He was quiet, until he wasn’t – and then there was either a rich nugget of wisdom, or a strict admonition in his booming voice. He passed away in 2003, and will never be forgotten.
We’ve had as many as 40 family members from seven states, including Texas, Kansas, Virginia, and Maryland come on our family camp out.
