Wild Releases #245 - #248

It's Memorial Day weekend here in the United States and for some of my family, that means camping at Deer Meadow Campground in Cooksburg, Pa. I used to be one of the ones that went up on Friday after work and suffered through cold nights in cold tents, and rainy, damp days under the tree canopy, and then coming home on Monday just to set up and rinse off the tent and chairs and coolers and anything else you took with you and then put everything away until Labor Day when you would do it all again. I got smart a few years ago and now I only go up for the day to visit the crazy ones who still camp overnight. Mom and I left home around 11:30 a.m. and my first release of the day took place about 90 minutes later--15 minutes away from camp--when I needed to stop and get gas. I left "Beneath the Silent Sea," by Richard P. Henrick, on top of one of the gas pumps at the Sunoco station on Route 36 near the I-80 interchange in Brookville, Pa., before driving off.

Book No. 2, Christopher Pike's "Remember Me 3," was left on a flat rock by the entrance gates of the campground. We were on our way back to the campsite after playing and losing 20 games of Bingo at the camp's pavilion.

Books No. 3 and 4--"ttfn," by Lauren Myracle, and "Henry and Mudge and the Bedtime Thumps," by Cynthia Rylant and Suçie Stevenson--were left on benches at the camp store after dinner. We went to the camp store in search of ice cream, but pickings were slim, so we left with Slush Puppies instead. While we sat sipping our Slush Puppies, we saw two pre-teen girls take "ttfn"--first to the arcade, and then inside the store to see if the book was lost or left behind, even though they read the "I'm FREE! I'm not lost!" bellyband on the book. I hope they ended up keeping it and enjoying it.