How I Spent My Autumn Vacation

It all began last Spring. We deferred our usual May trip to somewhere we'd never been before so Jason could send his daughter to China for an international robotics competition. Then he mentioned that one of his favorite artists -Frank Frazetta -had a museum in East Stroudsburg, PA.

I began looking into the Stroudsburg area and discovered it was in the southern Pocono Mountains. Perfect! We could combine our usual autumn color trip with the never been there before trip.

We flew into Allentown, PA, a pleasant little airport and drove about an hour to the village of Shawnee on Delaware.

We stayed at an awesome B&B - Santosha on the Ridge. The owner, Leslie, was awesome. The inn was gorgeous. It was one of those places where you almost hate to tell people about because you want to keep it all to yourself.

(Before I forget, all photographs by JAZ.)
The road to the inn:


The inn:


One of the views from our room:


We hiked the "red trail" at Bushkill Falls:

I raised an eyebrow or two at the claim of "The Niagara Falls of PA", while certainly beautiful and no, I've never been to Niagara, but these were a tad bit smaller than Niagara. Also- back at the gift shop, there was tee shirt emblazoned with the boast: I survived the Red Trail at Bushkill Falls! 1267 steps! And since I had survived the trail (and the shirt was on sale) I bought it. The lady there told me that the 1267 steps referred to the actual wooden stairs built along the trail, not the other 10 jillion steps along natural paths. No wonder my calf muscles were screaming blue murder at me for days.

We went at dawn to a spot down the road, Columcille Megalith Park.
What a treasure this spot is! Leslie, our innkeeper, told us that the gentleman who created this park was a teacher who had spent some time in the Scottish Islands and fell in love with the spiritual use of stones. He has created this park over many years, trying to capture the spiritual feel of the stones and the power of the earth and nature.

I think he succeeded beyond measure:



We also drove up to a small town, Milford, PA because we'd been told it was a nicely preserved example of a New England town. It was a great little side trip, a beautiful town - all decked out for Halloween already! We had a wonderful moment of wandering around success when we stumbled upon Grey Towers.

On the way back, we hiked a short hike to Raymondskill Falls.


And finally, on the way back to the airport, we did a quick drive by through historic Bethlehem, PA. I wish we'd had more time to explore as it looked to be a great spot to wander.

The food? That's a whole other post!