Last Thursday, my parents, Todd, and I only worked half days so we could head out to the mountains in Pennsylvania for a long weekend. We had a 7.5 hour drive ahead of us to
Laporte, Pennsylvania where my family has a cottage. My brother, Jeff, and his girlfriend, Kate, were taking the red-eye from San Francisco that night and would arrive on Friday.
Welcome to Laporte
When we go to Laporte, we typically stay at the family cottage but a few of my aunts, uncles, and my brother all went in and bought a house in Laporte, which happens to be next door to the house the rest of my aunts and uncles own, so we stayed at the "new" house this time. The big difference between the cottage and the 2 houses my relatives own is that the cottage is only used during warm weather months because there is no heat; it has always been used as a vacation home during the summer.
A view of the "new" house we stayed at
Another view
Standing at the new house, you can see my aunts & uncles other house....basically my family owns this whole street
Family room
Living room
Kitchen
The room Todd & I stayed in
The main bathroom only has a bathtub and no shower...
so to shower, we had to use the creepy shower in the basement...
with a creepy toilet right across from it
We didn't get in to Laporte until late on Thursday evening so we went straight to bed. I got up on Friday morning and went for an easy 4 mile run around town and then came back and did Insanity with Todd. We got ready for the day and headed to Dushore, one of the bigger towns in the area, to get lunch and go to the grocery store. Unfortunately, it started raining while we were there so once we got back to the house, we spent the rest of the day lounging around and waiting for Jeff & Kate to arrive.
Todd & I doing Insanity
Lunch at Mary Beth's West Side Deli
There was nothing healthy about our lunch
Since it was Jeff's 31st birthday on Friday, he wanted to go to dinner at High Knob Inn before coming back for cake & presents.
Todd made a new friend
Todd & I at dinner
Outside afterwards
Celebrating Jeff's birthday
Blowing out the candles
Loved this beer by the way
Saturday morning, Jeff & I got up to run together. He's training for a 50 mile trail race in December so we ran 12 mi together and then he added a few more on after that. We ran from Laporte to Eagles Mere and back and wow, was it hilly! Once my legs recovered from all those uphills, we all drove back over to Eagles Mere to walk around the lake, have lunch at the Sweet Shop, and look around the shops in town.
Eagles Mere Lake
Todd, me, Jeff, Kate
Eagles Mere beach
The Sweet Shop
Some of the shops in Eagles Mere
After Eagles Mere, my dad & Jeff wanted to go to Worlds End State Park to see some of the flood damage from a couple weeks ago. My uncle and cousin were here during the flooding and my cousin captured some amazing photos for his
website. Despite some of the roads in the area still being washed out, I was surprised at how much cleaning up had been done.
Loyalsock Creek....the road is still closed over this bridge to Forksville
Part of the creek
Another view
Just a couple weeks ago, this area was all under water
Hanging out
After checking out the damage, we went back to the house and walked over to the cottage to take a peak inside. It's always nice to hang out at the cottage.
Our cottage, Wake Robin
My aunt & uncle were in town from Philly and were staying at the other house next to the one we were staying at. We decided to grill out and sit out by the fire on Saturday night.
Before I knew it, it was already Sunday morning and time to pack up for our drive home to Columbus. We went next door to have lunch with my aunt and uncle before leaving.
Lunch on the porch
On our way out of town, we made a quick stop at Katie's Country Store. Ever since I was younger, I've always loved stopping here and thought it was going to be closed because of the flooding but luckily they had just opened back up the day before.
Can't wait to be back next year...
