B.B. Van Campen farm

 Most of the families who lived in this area seemed to love dividing and bequeathing land to their children, brothers, and nephews. A hop, skip and jump away from the James Van Campen farmstead is Benjamin B. Van Campen's farmstead.This section of property had been inherited from Moses Van Campen. 

Side note: looking up information about these sites sends me down the rabbit hole of internet information. 

Anyway, the pictures from last year have the blue sky, while the pictures from last weekend have a white sky.

One distinguishing factor of the B.B. Van Campen house is the slate siding on one side. I'm not sure what the appeal would be (and I'm sure it cost an arm and a leg), but it's pretty cool.

 There are so many  barns, sheds, and structures here that you could spend all day wandering around. Barns not your thing? There is also a pond behind one of the barns.

Usually the only time I drive all the way out to these places is while leading a photography group around, so I don't have a ton of time to wander at my own leisure. And I'd rather spend my free time exploring new places!

 Next: Sunflowers. And then I'll finally be caught up.

James Van Campen / Miller Farm

So apparently I jinxed myself in a good way when I wrote about my computer dying and losing all my files, because I was able to start up my old computer and get my files! So now I have extra pictures to add to this entry on the James Van Campen farm, also known as the Miller Farmhouse. I actually had been calling it the Miller Van Campen farm until I did some research and found out otherwise.

Last June, we went to go see the James Van Campen farmhouse, a 200+ year old historic site here in the park. But apparently we were too late; somebody burnt it down a month before we got there.

 A charred foundation and old police tape were all that was left of the old house. Maybe someone's hobo fire got out of control? Houses in the park do suffer from the occasional arsonist, but the interesting part is that there were three other barns on the property that were unaffected.

Note the awesome rooster.

Me, a year ago. Life was so much simpler way back then. 

When we went back last weekend, the foundation to the house was COMPLETELY overgrown. Like "shrubbery taller than me" overgrown. And someone stole the wooden rooster that was on one of the barns, which really pisses me off. 

So many broken windows. The window I took that self-portrait in last year was also broken, by the way.

 Next up: BB Van Campen.

Harold Van Campen trucks

Two weeks ago, Allison and I hiked out to see a couple of trucks that were hidden in the woods on the Harold VanCampen section of the park. There is no trail and they are hidden in the woods at the top of the hill a few hundred yards from the roadside. Getting to the trucks requires walking through piles of rusty debris on the ground and waist-high ferns. That place was Spiderweb City and I was like Godzilla, crashing through all of them and creating hundreds of homeless spiders.

Anyway, here are some pictures.