
Although our tenure as Park Hosts at Pocahontas State Park was scheduled to end with Halloween, we found ourselves hanging around a bit longer. That’s not to say we didn’t accomplish a lot in the last half of the month, including a spooktacular Park After Dark festival that attracted a record crowd one Saturday night. But we always seem to find more to do.

Ghosting Along
As we continued to make progress staining the deck on last of the yurts, we made ourselves available to help with some fun activities as well. The big event for the month was Park After Dark, a Halloween festival with hayrides, night hikes, crafts, critters and candy – to name just a few of the activities. We were joined by Adam and Droz as volunteer “floaters”, moving between tasks as needed by the festival organizers. By the time we arrived, Adam and Droz had helped transform the area with some well-placed skeletons and (non-native) spider’s webs along with other mood-setting paraphernalia. While Cathy moved to the front gate, Adam took up his post doing crowd-control for face-painting at the CCC Museum. Dave looked to fill-in where needed – from refueling the generator at the craft tent to re-supplying the candy coffers at Trunk Or Treat.
As we continued to make progress staining the deck on last of the yurts, we made ourselves available to help with some fun activities as well. The big event for the month was Park After Dark, a Halloween festival with hayrides, night hikes, crafts, critters and candy – to name just a few of the activities. We were joined by Adam and Droz as volunteer “floaters”, moving between tasks as needed by the festival organizers. By the time we arrived, Adam and Droz had helped transform the area with some well-placed skeletons and (non-native) spider’s webs along with other mood-setting paraphernalia. While Cathy moved to the front gate, Adam took up his post doing crowd-control for face-painting at the CCC Museum. Dave looked to fill-in where needed – from refueling the generator at the craft tent to re-supplying the candy coffers at Trunk Or Treat.

Bonnie and Troy arrived early in the evening accompanied by a very cute witch and a scary looking ninja. They came to enjoy the festivities. By the time they were making their way home, they had faces and hands painted and a bag of Halloween candy each to take with them. When the crowds swelled to record numbers midway through the evening, Cathy moved to help make-up more gift bags, and Droz replaced her manning the front gate. That also freed her to move to help entertain the crowds in the haywagon line with a game of “put the ball in the cauldron”.

By night’s end, we were pleased with how well the festival had gone, but understandably tired. Dave stayed behind to help with the final clean-up, while Cathy, Adam and Droz headed back to get them set up to sleep in the RV. (It was too late to pitch a tent as the clock ticked toward 11.) But we were already talking about what we wanted to do next year.

The next weekend we found ourselves surrounded by an invasive species and about 50 cub scouts. (Or are they the same thing?) We were leading Pack 38 from King George with the volunteer part of their camping weekend, helping them identify Japanese Stiltgrass and eradicate it from a small section of the park. While the older members of the pack filled garbage cans and tarps full of raked leaves or trekked back into the woods to retrieve 28 bags of trash from the flood plain, the youngest of the pack joined us to collect 32 bags of stiltgrass. What an amazing group of youngsters (and parents, of course)!

When the weather didn’t cooperate with our staining work, we looked elsewhere for mischief. That put us in the Nature Center installing a mount for the snapping turtle’s heat light, or in the now closed pool area, rigging “ramps” out of 2 x 4’s to allow frogs and other creatures a way out of the deep water that seems so attractive, but so deadly for them. But the best job was getting trained to drive the tractor to pull the hay wagon. It has been a number of years since either of us had to think about engaging the clutch on a vehicle, but it came back quick enough. We managed to avoid embarrassing ourselves in most of the exercise, except when it came to backing up the tractor with the wagon attached. With 2 pivot points, we heard it described as trying to push a noodle. And we would both agree. Let’s hope we only have to go forward with the wagon when we put into practice.
And, what about the final yurt deck? Well, the weather cooperated just enough to allow us to finish just as our month ended. We used some of the leftover stain to help pretty up the new Visitor Center sign before stowing the last of the 8 cans back in the shed for someone else’s future project.

Near the end of our stay, we attended the annual Volunteer Appreciation event at the park with lots of food, some games and award presentations for outstanding volunteer efforts. Imagine our surprise when our names were called for Camp Host of the Year. The recognition was a wonderful acknowledgement of our efforts at the park. But it wasn’t the award that will bring us back next year, but the fun we had doing the work.

Not More Birthday Parties!
The Thursday before Park after Dark, we made our annual trip to Reston for our physicals and a visit with Cookie. (And found ourselves staining her back deck while we were there. Good thing we are now experienced.) Although we had a small celebration with Cookie of Cathy’s 60th, Cathy assumed the birthday celebrations were over and she was ready to move on – until we arrived back at the park on Saturday afternoon.
The Thursday before Park after Dark, we made our annual trip to Reston for our physicals and a visit with Cookie. (And found ourselves staining her back deck while we were there. Good thing we are now experienced.) Although we had a small celebration with Cookie of Cathy’s 60th, Cathy assumed the birthday celebrations were over and she was ready to move on – until we arrived back at the park on Saturday afternoon.

We were expecting to meet up with Bonnie and Adam’s families who were gathering for Park After Dark that evening. However, Cathy was oblivious to the grander plan. First, it was just that Bonnie and Troy had brought their trailer to stay the weekend, and that there was another celebration that was unexpected. Then, Cathy’s sister Grace and her husband John appeared. But then they kept trickling in. Chris. Clint and Carolyn. And her mom. All were there despite recent illness and the long trip from NC. It was amazing. Adam caught her reaction live in this video.
We had a lavish spread of food, and not one, but 2 cakes. Droz had been planning to make one for a couple of months. His was a luscious Black Forest cake. And the NC folks had come with a coconut cake. However, the sweetest treat was a stack of 60 “memories” compiled from friends and family that left us laughing and crying in quick succession. Unfortunately, there were a few items that Cathy had hoped had been forgotten (such as the infamous underwear incident). There’s no hope of that now. We concluded with a video of pictures from the past 60 years and lots of poses of the “four girls” lined up in Sunday finery or beachwear set to music. As we said our goodbyes, both the birthday girl and all the conspirators were happy with the success of the afternoon’s festivities.

Parting Shots
The park is a great place to bike ride. While we stick to the roads or the wider trails, Adam and Droz have taken on the more difficult mountain biking trails. Before we left, we had fun riding bikes with both of them, which gave Grandpa the chance to give Droz some lessons in maintaining his new (to him) bike.
The park is a great place to bike ride. While we stick to the roads or the wider trails, Adam and Droz have taken on the more difficult mountain biking trails. Before we left, we had fun riding bikes with both of them, which gave Grandpa the chance to give Droz some lessons in maintaining his new (to him) bike.