In the middle of my fifth grade year my mom and I moved in with my now-stepfather Larry. We had been living for a few years in an apartment in the old town section of Souderton. I had been able to walk from our apartment to school, to the movies, to a friend’s house. My step-father’s house is in the woods – up a half mile driveway on a thickly wooded sparsely populated rural road. From there I couldn’t walk anywhere. On the rare occasion my neighbor David and I would bike the half hour to the Trumbauersville General Store, but that wasn’t very safe because people would speed carelessly down those shoulder-less back roads. As a result of my seclusion I was never a big fan of the forested locale – even after getting my drivers license. I felt isolated and suffocated by those trees and often thought if I never saw a damn tree again it wouldn’t be a loss. I made up my mind to live in the city even before I had any idea what that might be like.
Tomorrow Mark, Noah and I go to spend a few days in the Poconos. Prior to planning this trip I haven’t really had much interest in visiting “the wilds.” My tree-hating teen rebellion has everything to do with my lack of interest in the great outdoors, but I’ve been living in the urban jungle for over ten years now so it’s high time I branch out. I don’t plan on going camping any time soon, but enjoying a nice fall festival weekend in Jim Thorpe is just about my speed. Plus I want Noah to appreciate and experience nature’s skyscrapers as well as those made by man. Someday he might think it’s really neat to camp out in Grandma’s backyard.
We’ll be back on Tuesday with tales and photos. Have a good one.
6 comments:
There's a hotel in Jim Thorpe that's haunted. When my Dad got ordained, he booked my husband and I the most haunted room in this hotel, because he thought it would be neat. It was! In the middle of the night, Ron woke up and saw my eye was open. When he looked closer, he saw my eye was actually closed, but there was an open eye superimposed over my eye. He turned away, and kept lookingback. Eventually this other eye looked 'surprised' and then vanished. Taht's a bit ookey.
Are yu staying in a hotel or camping? Must admidt I'm not a huge fan of the whole camping thing, but I wish you a blast with the two boys! Have fun!
HOTEL! We are staying at the Lantern Lodge just outside of Jim Thorpe. No camping for me. I like to SHOWER.
That is super creepy. I don't think I would be recounting that story happily - but more appalled. What hotel was it? Any restaurant recommendations?
Have fun!!
I love the woods. When I was a kid I would spend as long as six weeks straight living in a platform tent at camp and it was one of the best times of my life. I would have a much harder time roughing it like that now, but when I was a kid it was great.
I feel the same with you. My family was so suburban that we never did anything outside except for barbecue. Our yard was just open grass. I've never been a big outdoors person. I am also very allergic to most things outdoors, which doesn't help. I am trying to put all of that behind me so that Dermot can love the great outdoors as much as what cities have to offer. I have to admit though I am happiest on vacations in cities where I can see new museums, hard to find films and plays, tiny little stores of strange things, and new restaurants. I would like to try to balance all of that out for Dermot. I don't camp either, but Ethan is looking forward to sleeping in a tent with Dermot in our back yard when he's older.
I hope you guys had a great time. I admit I was sort of surprised to hear that you guys were planning to go up there. sort of like when you and mark went out to amish country in lancaster. totally out of character. but it's great that you're both flexible.
how was it?? did you see the giant lump of coal?
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