Poconos

I just got back from a family trip to the Poconos in Pennsylvania. By family, I don't just mean my immediate family, but with my mom's family. There was about 30 of us. We did this two years ago, we rented two beach houses in LBI and had such a great time we wanted to try it again, this time in the mountains. I love beaches, so I was not sure if I would enjoy the mountain vacation, but it ended up being a good, active week.

I was informed the houses would have Internet, so I lugged my laptop out there for the sole purpose of blogging and doing about 2 hours of real work. However, they did not have wireless Internet, and no one knew where to find the wire hook up, let alone have an Ethernet cable. My phone also did not have steady bars; so it became a welcoming technology free week!

I really wanted to go to Bushkill Falls which was about an hour away from our house. The brochure looked beautiful, and by the second day of not doing much, I decided to take a ride up there. Two of my sisters decided to join me for the hike. There was a $10 fee per person to get in and we decided to take the red trail, which was the hardest and longest. We hiked this trail in reverse and began with a nice stroll in the woods along a small river. Soon we came to our first waterfall (8 in total). We took some stairs down to another waterfall where we were able to take off our shoes and enter the water and go in/under the falls. I've never really done anything like that before, usually just viewed from afar, so I decided, why not? I loved having the water splash on me while standing in the super shallow water. It was so much fun and it seemed as though all my worries just vanished, and was really able to enjoy the rest of the day and the rest of the vacation. We saw more waterfalls and went up and down more stairs until we reached the main falls. The hike back to the top was brutal, with all the stairs - but we did it and when we left the park I saw one of those penny souvenir pennies that read, "I survived the red trail" and made those for each of us. I am not a hiker by any means, and I did not find this trail to be difficult in the sense that most of it was easy, but the hardest part was all the stairs in a row - not actually hiking. It was more like a leisurely walk with a lot of stairs.

we did it!

Time to start catching up with your blogs. Stay tuned for more about my trip.