Hillside Campgrounds
Gibson, PA
Even while still living in New York City, I'd heard of the Hillside Campgrounds, thanks
to Andre', who'd
started going there a few summers before with Tom and Albert.
I hadn't been camping since I was in the Boy Scouts, and was now the perfect NYC fag, who
doesn't go anywhere that doesn't have room service. But now, living so
close to it -- and constantly hearing more about it from just about everyone in the area
-- it was impossible to say no when the three of them invited us to join them one weekend.
The first time, it was just for the Saturday evening of 1997's "Levi/Leather
Weekend #1." We got there in time for a late supper, a short while at the
bonfire, and an introduction to the back of the volleyball court. That's where they
left me, and an hour or three later, I was hooked.
The second time up there, it was for an entire weekend, over 1997's "Fantasy
Weekend." We didn't feel like messing around with a tent and all the
paraphrenalia, but knew that the rear two seats in the Aerostar folded
down and joined together to make a respectable bed, so we just added a couple of sleeping
bags and up we went. From all reports, this was a rather tame Fantasy Weekend; God
knows, I didn't see (or do!), nearly as much as I'd hoped to. Still, it was the
first time I'd gotten to see the place in the daytime, and Tom and Albert
and Andre' walked
us ragged giving us a tour of the whole place. Just don't ask me to find the NNS
site again ... ;)
The third time up, it was for 1997's "Illuminations Weekend." By this
point, we'd decided that sleeping in the van was do-able, but only just barely, and it had
all the cachet of a White Castle ... so, we scoured the countryside all through July and
eventually bought a used-but-serviceable pop-up camper to bring up there. It was a
bit beat-up but very comfortable.
Illuminations was spectacular. Everyone had been telling us about how beautiful
it was, and it doesn't take much imagination to speculate on what hundreds of queens with
a license to decorate are going to do, even if it is in the middle of woods.
All I could think of, as we walked around touring the campsites that Saturday
night, was that it was a "gay Disneyland."
We did our best to
take pictures while we were there, but due the difficulties of photographing at night,
with hundreds of people walking around, most of them didn't come out. This shot (to
the left), was taken just before it got completely dark, and shows the view from our
campsite looking back toward the main entry road, with the luminarias lining the
walk. I thought this was a really nice touch; in the afternoon, a camp truck had
gone around and distributed the bags and candles to every campsite, so no matter where you
went, these lit up the side of the road. A candle in a bag doesn't sound like much,
but at night, the effect of hundreds of them stretching off into the distance is quite
impressive ... especially when you realize that that hot guy you've been staring at is
being illuminated from below ... ;)
Here (on the right),
is a shot from our campsite looking in the other direction, away from the main road and up
towards the daytime cruising trails. In the middle foreground on the right side of
the walkway, you can see one of our attempts at decorating, which involved putting tea
candles in colored plastic cups in all the shades of the rainbow flag. That tall
white thing in the background on the right is (get this!), an enormous paper-mache penis,
erected (!) by one of the sites next to ours and lit ever so cunningly with strobe
lights. What you can't see is that across the walkway, there were wads of (what we
surmised to be), wet toilet paper, which - properly placed - were the load this huge
honker had shot. The squawks from the delicate whenever they inadvertently stepped
into one of these provided hours of amusement.
Here on your left you
can see one of the centerpieces of our decorating theme, although I have to admit, it
doesn't show up very well in the photograph. What we had done was, assemble a whole
shitload of colored plastic cups - representing all the shades of the rainbow flag - and
then, with a small tapered candle in each (actually, I think they were leftover Shabbos
candles!), built an illuminated rainbow flag on the ground. Size-wise, it came out
to about 8' by 6', and looked very nice, at least for the first few hours. By the
end, some of the candles had melted down or toppled over and slagged the cups they were
in, leaving just a plasti-wax minefield and some nice memories. You can't make it
out very well, but the purple lights seemingly hanging in mid-air are actually festooning
part of the pop-up camper.
This (on the right),
is my favorite photo from the weekend, and not because it shows the pop-up camper draped
with lights and the walkway to it lined with more of our colored-cup-and-candle
thingies. Lou
didn't realize it when he took the picture -- and neither one of us realized it till after
we'd seen the print half a dozen times -- but if you look on the left-hand side of
the picture, you can see what are actually three naked men happily involved in a group sex
act around the campfire at our site. I'm not going to identify who it is that's
actually there, but I do have fond recollections of Scott having a very good time
that evening.
This was the last weekend we actually spent the weekend up there for; we did go up a
few more times on Saturdays for various events, but I think we've both been spoiled by
having a campsite to go back to, and day-camping just wasn't as much fun.
Schedule
Click here for Hillside's
2001
calendar and excerpts from the introductory brochure.
Years Gone By
If you're of an antiquarian bent, click here
for Hillside's 2000 calendar. If you're really fuckin' bored, click here
for Hillside's 1999 calendar. If you're REALLY fuckin' bored, click here for Hillside's 1998 calendar and
brochure excerpts.
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This page last updated: Friday, June 01, 2001 12:30:26 PM
