For vacation this year, we headed north to Forest County, Pennsylvania. It was a quick trip of about two hours, but it seemed like we were a world away from everything (mainly due to not having cell, internet or tv reception). We rented a little cabin called The Storybook Cabin for the week (5 nights, actually). And, I can’t remember ever being on a more relaxing vacation than this one.
While there were other cabins in the area, no one else was around (perhaps they were only used as a weekend retreat by their owners?) so we got a good taste of what it would be like to live in the country, which we would like to do someday. I have to say, I really liked the seclusion.
The cabin was pet friendly, so we took Alice with us. I have never seen that dog so happy. She was off-lead most of the time and behaved very well. Now I cannot imagine vacationing without one of the dogs.
Our days pretty much went like this: get up, eat breakfast, do something, eat lunch, relax/read/nap at the cabin, do something else, eat supper, fish at the river or board games, campfire (with campfire snacks!) and then read before retiring for the night.
Activities for the week included fishing, canoeing/kayaking on the Clarion River, Cook Forest State Park (in particular we visited the Forest Cathedral area and the fire tower), Double Diamond Deer Ranch, Forest County Visitors Center, Sherman Memorial Lighthouse, the Tionesta Lake and Buzzard Swamp. There’s a whole lot more to do up there, but we kept the pace pretty slow.
Fishing on the river wasn’t good (it was all fished out), so we went to Buzzard Swamp (which is part of the Allegheny National Forest) to do some fishing. We only caught little fish there, but at least we caught something. That was my first time fishing since I was a teenager. Given what we had to pay for our fishing licenses, I imagine I will be doing some more fishing this year. Next year (yes, we are going back) we’re going to try our luck at Tionesta Lake.
We ate most of our meals at the cabin. Brian and Jacob came up with a nice menu for the week. We ate lunch out most of the week–this gave us a chance to drive to Brookville, where there is cell reception, and check our emails and phone messages.
This definitely ranks as one of our best vacations ever. Who would have thought that we could experience that just two hours from our house?