[BruceBruce1959]

OK we headed out Friday april 18th about 6:15 pm It was a real nice ride, we drove about 4 1/2 to 5 hours before pulling into the Modena service area on the New York thruway to sleep thru the night and continue on in the morning. We all slept well but got up about 5:30ish to the loud MOOING alarm coming from the cattle hauler that just pulled in and parked next to us.

We headed into the service area, had breakfast and got back on the road to continue the drive to the campground.
we got to the campground about 12:30ish, checked in and got all setup, the campground is beautiful totally secluded in the woods just as we imagine all campgrounds should be,, very picturesque.
We needed a few things of groceries so we headed over to the grocery store and on the way back was when we saw the following picture
(story continued after pic)



There was a forest fire back by the campground!!
Apparently there were some kids fooling around in the woods back there and ended up starting the fire (not camper kids but local yocals)
we got back to our camper and were told everyone was evacuating the area I asked the manager, "Rather than leave and come back if we could just pack up and be ready to head out if need be" she said that would be fine.
We watched the Forest Rangers, Fire Department officials and local Police as they patrolled looking for the punks that started the fire. we could also see the planes patrolling the fire along with the hellicopters carrying drop bags to extinguish the fire. (story continues after the following pic)



All the smoke disappeared from the sky about 6:30 but it wasn't until about 8:30ish that the area was declared safe again and we could RE-SETUP...
the Campground staff were extrememly appologetic about the situation as we kept telling them those things are not your fault and we totally understood the problem.. Last we heard they captured 2 of the teens involved and were still looking for the other 2.
We're back home now but even with all that Drama we still had a great time, understandably we didn't have any campfires, and I didn't think it would have been cool to stroll into the woods but we did take a short walk along and here's a pic of what we found..



It was a great time and I'm sure we'll go back again this summer..