When we retired, we joked that we wouldn’t be going on “vacations” anymore, since we were already on permanent vacation; from then on any of our trips would be just “traveling.” Fast forward ten years(!)… Anne and I just did a long weekend ride up to Jim Thorpe, and we’ve been so busy that it felt like the vacations of old.
Day 1
I took no photos on the first day, my camera was packed away and I didn’t feel like digging it out…
We took roads up to Northampton, then got on the D&L at the Cementon trailhead. The trail is sheltered here by trees and cliffs, which was good because the day was sunny and hot. Brunch was scones & coffee at the Slatington Farmer’s Market, and from there it was only about 10 miles to Weissport where we had a hotel reservation. We were so early that we decided to go the extra few miles into Jim Thorpe, and did some people-watching before returning to check in.
Our hotel was (barely) withing walking distance of PJ Whelihans, so that’s where we got dinner. We got caught there by a huge thunderstorm (and Lyft was less than useful), so we waited things out before our walk back to the hotel.
Day 2
We got breakfast at the cafe in Weissport, went back up the towpath to Jim Thorpe and continued on to Mauch Chunk Lake. We were on the lookout for mountain laurel, which blooms around this time of year. We saw some in bloom, not a lot (not even on the Switchback Trail), but the scenery was definitely beautiful.
On the way up to the lake we took the path through Board Bottom, so on the way back we went down the road into town — there is where we saw tons and tons of mountain laurel, the entire mountain (as seen from the road) was in bloom. Again, no pictures, we were moving too fast.
We ate lunch at Cafe Arielle, which was hard to figure out what it really was, but for us it was an awesome lunch place neither of us had ever been to, one with outdoor seating and a decent beer menu. After that we went back to the town square, did a bit more people watching, and rode back to the hotel, missing most of the occasional raindrops. Dinner was at PJ Whelihans again.
Day 3
The ride home was pretty quiet: we got up early and breakfasted at that cafe again, then retraced our steps back home — we were home and doing laundry by noon, and our busy lives were waiting there where we left them.
