The Poconos

So I'm late in posting this, but vacation has come and gone, and was replaced by an insane football schedule this week. So we spent a week in the Poconos - Albrightsville to be exact. And it was great - gorgeous mountains and forests and waterfalls and good times with family. We arrived on Saturday, and after having a hard time actually finding the house in the development, we settled in. Jersey fam was there for the weekend, and on Sunday we went to the beach. The kids played on the playground for a bit:
Sarah is dancing and beating the drum there - so cute. And then we trekked off for a ride on the paddle boats.
Tricky to steer, but a good workout. After dinner, the Jerseyans left for home and we went to the grocery store and... Rita's!!! So good, makes me so sad that the one here in Mentor closed. Monday Mom, Ellie and I were off for a hike at Bushkill Falls. It was so beautiful, and even though I've only got the photos from my camera to choose from - you'll get the general idea.
Ellie is an amazing rock climber we learned. Who knew?
Bushkill Falls, is known as the Niagara of Pennsylvania, and has 8 waterfalls. We took the 2 mile trek into and then out of the gorge to see all of them.
A long and hot trek, but so worth it.
And we stayed a bit silly with our photo ops through out.
And Mom was content to commune with nature for a bit longer than we were.
So we kept moving and made our way out. Ellie has some good pictures after the hike that I'm sure she'll post when she gets a chance.

We drove back to the house in time to meet the Perryites when they arrived. We took a walk to the playground that evening and kind of just took it easy. Tuesday morning we set out for the Delaware Water Gap and a trolley ride.
Not necessarily the best trolley tour ever - there was a lot of "if you look through those trees off to the left, you see the outline of...", but we did hear plenty about the various floodings of the deadly Delaware and the celebrities that use to spend time there back in the heyday (really, it would have been an excellent drinking game to take a drink every time that the driver said "back in the day"). Anyway, we stayed in PA but got some good looks at NJ.
Especially the natural profile of Chief Tammany (which is seriously cool, in my opinion).
And then got a good look at the river itself from the former site of a hotel (still can't figure out how the hotel fit in the spot that it did, but oh well), never mind the overgrowth of the greenery and the turnpike.

Wednesday came, and Ellie and I set out for a whitewater adventure on that deadly Delaware. Ha. I don't have any pictures, because I thought that it would be a "whitewater" adventure so we only had the underwater camera with us. In fact, it turned out to be a 6 mile paddling adventure. It was pretty, but a lot of work.

So Thursday, we set out for my old home - Jim Thorpe. And a ride on the Lehigh Gorge Scenic Railway.
Mom took most of the pictures on her camera (as I only had a small memory card), so I won't show you much of the "scenic" parts. Just the kids.
My personal favorite view of the Jim Thorpe. I miss seeing that every day - I've found that I'm definitely a mountain person, they're just so beautiful.

Friday morning, Ellie and I lazed at the house a bit while everyone else went to the beach (in hopes of wearing out the kids a bit before their drive home), and we met up with them after a while.
And played in the sand. Mason isn't as much of a fish as his siblings - until the duck came into the swimming area. And once again, Ellie has more photos on her camera that I'm sure you'll see.

After the kiddos left, we eventually made our way to Hickory Run State Park (which was basically just over the main street from us) for another hike to another waterfall.
That was just the appetizer waterfall (I had worried that that was it), and you had to kind of get low to get a good shot:
As Ellie demonstrates here. But we kept going, and found the real Hawk Falls.
Really pretty, and had a swimming hole at the bottom that some folks were enjoying. This is the view from the top of the falls, we managed to get really close (which others have better pictures of).
And then we managed to use the rock ledges for a group shot. Rhododendrons were everywhere!
Mom kept saying that it must be amazing when they're in bloom, and I have to agree. Just walking through this secluded path would be beautiful.
We saw a pretty bit of the river, or maybe it's a creek.
And then we found the bottom of the falls.The amazing thing about this vacation - we managed to get a whole bunch of pictures of Mom - we never get pictures of Mom!
The area had so many beautiful forests with amazing rock cliffs and formations, I kept wanting to take pictures of the cliffs with the ferns and lichen and rhododendrons, but managed to control the urge mostly.

After the falls, I talked Mom and Ellie into finding the Boulder Field which is in another part of the park.
They weren't real enthused at first, but once we got there, they both agreed it was pretty cool. It's hard to get a sense of the size of it all, until you're there hopping from rock to rock.
We didn't venture out too far, and I can't imagine going all the way across, but I'm sure people have.
Seriously, a lot of boulders, and it was really cool.

Afterwards, we went to dinner and then just chilled at the house. Saturday morning we packed up and cleaned out and headed off, Ellie and I to Ohio, and Mom to NJ. A very good vacation, that was very much needed. The depressing part? It's another year before I get another one.