Splitting to the Rock, Yo

(NOTE: I noticed as I was posting this that I never posted my 53 reasons why I'm happy post that I wrote the day after my birthday... I'll try to post that in a day or two!)

Don't ask me to explain the title of this post. All I can say is that I've interviewed a couple of rappers this past week (no one you've ever heard of) so I'm "spittin' in the flow" as they say.
Anyway, we took a quick overnight trip to this place....

For those of you who haven't been vacationing here for the past six summers, it's Split Rock Resort up in the Poconos. Rob and I decided to take a short trip up there this weekend, in search of fall foliage. The conversation went like this:

Rob: I've got five vacation days left.
Me: The girls have Monday off. Let's take a trip to look at leaves. Like we did in the old days. When the trees were big and gas prices were small.
Rob: The hotels will be booked.
Me: Maybe not.
Rob: The hotels will be expensive.
Me: Maybe not. (To me, a maybe means YES I WILL FIND A WAY TO DO THIS!!!)

So I found us a cheap hotel room (don't ask me how ... I've got connections through this thing called The Internet) at Split Rock, booked it, and we took off just after I finished selling art at Jake's Flea Market.
Speaking of Jakes, I'm happy to report that I made $185! Seriously. There are few things that I'd get up and on the road in the dark for, but making money on stuff that's been lying around my basement for at least 8 years is one of them.
But, I digress. We got on the road (Aunt Terry made sure Cash and the Hamsters didn't starve, although now that I think about it, I never told her about the hamsters...) Sunday afternoon and took a leisurely drive up to the Poconos. Here's some of the sights...

This is a road somewhere near Beltzwood State Park, where we stopped to walk around a bit. People were SWIMMING in the lake there -- that's how sunny and warm the afternoon was:

This is a tree near the lake condo that I want someone to buy for me (feel free to contact me for details if you're in the mood to purchase a gorgeous lakefront condo for a very nice writer and her family). Isn't it gorgeous? The read was sparkling in the sunlight:

And here is the fall view of Big Boulder lake from the condo. I still haven't gotten a new camera, and this photo is only okay. This morning when we went to tour the condo again, the trees were reflecting their colors off the water -- beautiful:

Finally we got to Split Rock. This is the view across Lake Harmony (we were standing by where they have the Turtle Races for those of you who know the place):

Here's a slightly different angle that includes the happy faces of my lovely daughters:



We did look at a lot of scenery, but also did a few other things in our day/night away.
I don't have a picture of it, but we had dinner at one of the Split Rock restaurants where we might still be if I hadn't snagged us a server. I have never waited 30 minutes just to have a server come to the table. It was disgraceful, but the server we were SUPPOSED to have told us that they weren't expecting so many people at that time, so they got overloaded. There were about 10 tables  and at least four servers, but whatever ... we just had a very long conversation period. ;)

The girls wanted to go swimming so we were waiting for the pool to open this morning. This is the kiddie pool, although they spent most of their time in the regular pool. That pool was too dark for photographs:

Hannah and Liz weren't allowed in the hot tub (too young) but alas, Rob was NOT too young, so he jumped in:

We walked around a lot. This is the view from the deck of the Lodge (where we stayed) nearby the pool that was under renovation. Check out the gorgeous trees in the back!

These are the stairs that I did NOT climb (Lizzie or Hannah took this picture) to get up to the top of Split Rock:

This picture made me smile. Hannah and Lizzie were following these two ducks, like two extra ducklings:

And of course we had to go to the arcade. We spent $20 and won ALL THESE PRIZES.

We also had a great view of the lake from our room. We got up early enough to see the sunrise over the mountain. It was stunning!

We all had a great time, but it was a whirlwind. Here's Hannah in the backseat coming home. Lizzie was sitting in the way back, in case you were wondering why she's not sitting beside Hannah! Shortly after this Hannah woke up, so we could end our little getaway at Yocco's.