Our trip to Pocono Mountains exceeded my expectation and was pretty much perfect, not considering the minor incident of our car losing its braking ability. It was probably one of the most relaxing vacations we had. In fact, it was so good that all the people who went with us who I talked to today were in a state of minor depression from the fact that everyone had to go back to work.

On Friday we all left a bit earlier from work than usual and were on the road by about 7pm. Maruk picked up Ignat and Misha and they left a bit earlier. Surprisingly enough we didn’t get stuck in traffic and our trip there took a bit more than 2 hours — which is unheard of around NYC especially on a long weekend.

Since the latest time to check in was 9pm and we got there a bit after that I asked Maruk to get our keys, which he did. We decided not to stop for dinner on our way there since Misha and Ignat were hungry as well. It was already dark when we arrived and it was a bit confusing inside the resort itself, but we were greeted by 3 flash lights shining in the darkness.

We parked right in front of our door and I was totally impressed by the cabin itself. It was a house built out of cedar and the living room area had very high ceilings going all the way up to the roof. It had a full kitchen with everything you could wish for, including dishes, silverware, pots, kettles, and all kinds of other cooking tools. The living room had a nice fireplace built out of stone. And the house had 3 small, but very cozy separate bedrooms.

The cottage itself was located right in the middle of the woods. Even though we couldn’t see much around, the forest was singing with hundreds of voices of frogs and crickets. And the air was so fresh you knew you were far away from New York City. The setting was perfect for a perfect weekend.

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First thing we did when we arrived was cooking a bunch of hot-dogs. Alena or mama made a light salad from fresh tomatoes and cucumbers. We all sat down around the large family table in the living room and had our little, but delicious dinner.

After a bit of talking and going over to Maruk’s house to say hello to his family everyone was ready to turn in for the day, since everyone was fresh off work and after a long drive.

Each room had windows which you could open by spinning a handle. I opened ours so we could get in some fresh forest air. There was a conveniently placed dimmer right above the bed. We got under a warm blanket, turned off the light and fell asleep soon after, listening to the sound of rain and singing forest.

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Next morning we woke rather early, by our standards at least. I got out of bed, put on my flip-flops and went outside. Turns out Misha, Ignat and papa woke up much earlier and went out for a walk. Mama said that they were on their way back already, but they got lost somewhere around the lake.

Our cabin was pretty far away from other cabins and was surrounded by oaks and maples. Also I was surprised to discover that the lake was clearly visible and was no more then 100 meters away. There was a decent grill nearby and there was another big table outside under the covered porch.

Later on Misha discovered that they had all kinds of sporting equipment available for the guest without any fees. There were different balls for volleyball and basketball, badminton rackets, there was a volleyball net and we even had a boat assigned to our cabin.

Everything was just great.

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The weekend flew by very quickly. People played a lot of badminton, we grilled a lot of steaks, burgers and shish-kebabs, did a lot of hiking around the forest and around the lake, swam a bit, played cards and enjoyed the company of good friends and family.

During the evenings we did a lot of star gazing and sitting in the beach chairs right near the water.

We celebrated my birthday on the Saturday with a big dinner and I got a bunch of cool presents.

We also took a lot of pictures, which I hope to post soon.

That’s pretty much it. Everything was great, the place was great, the company was great. I had a lot of fun and I loved our weekend get-away. We will definitely visit this place again. Maybe during the winter when everything is going to be covered in snow. And we’ll be able to sit and talk inside our cabin around the warm fireplace.