Blackwater for Halloween

(Retrospective from our visit to Blackwater in 2010). We have arrived at Blackwater River State Park and have managed to get one of the last sites available. The new sites are quite big, however not big enough that I could leave the van on the trailer. It was here that we realised that it was Saturday night and Halloween. The place was swarming with kids! But it was a lovely atmosphere. many people had decortd their sites with lights and pumpkins, and even pumpkin lanterns. I zoomed out to the 'local' shop (only 5 miles away) to buy some 'ket' (as the kids in Middlesbrough schools used to say) to hand out as treats for the kids as they wandered round. As darkness fell so the campsite lit up with the decorations and there was a continuous background noise of distant shouting and laughing, every now and then a group of kids (usually with parents) would come round past the site and we handed out sweets, though we had a bag of eyeballs (grapes) and fingers (baby carrots) to dare the kids to put their hand in to collect one. Then Sally and I had a wander round the campground to look at all the decorations, saying 'hi' to most and visiting with some to be offered the snacks/buffet they had put out for people. It was a very pleasant and friendly evening deep in the middle of the forest (which a lot of parents obviously used to their advantage for ghost stories).
Next morning we hitched up the wagon and moved on to Three Rivers State Park and spent a couple of nights there before moving on to Connie and Jim's for the Waldo Festival.