I have definitely been less active on the blog in the past few weeks. I am focusing a lot of my online energy into wedding planning! I am getting really excited about lots of things that I'm making for the wedding. But I was excited to post about our weekend activities from last week.
We drove upstate a couple hours to the Catskills and met Curt and Katie for a weekend stay in a cabin. We had a blast. Unfortunately, the cabin was not all it was cracked up to be. This is the wording from the ad that we answered:
On-Site Amenities:
Fireplace • Dishwasher • Refrigerator/Freezer (full size) • Stove • Kitchenware (dishes, pots, utensils, etc.) • Coffee Maker • Microwave • Blender • Toaster • High Speed Internet Access (wireless) • High Speed Internet Access (wired) • Computer (with printer) • Telephone • Television, Large Screen • Cable, Basic • Stereo • DVD Player • CD Player • Board Games/Puzzles • Hot Tub • Deck • Grill (coal) • Porch (no screen) • Picnic Table • Fire Pit • Hammock • River Access (close walking proximity or deeded rights) • Ironing Board/Iron • Pets Considered • Toaster Oven • Alarm Clock • Bicycle • Smoke Free Home
We get up there, and thought we were in the wrong house because there was no fireplace. It wasn't a must have, but since this place came up when I searched for a fireplace and a hot tub, and was in a good location and reasonably priced, we were really excited about lounging in front of the fireplace and soaking in the hot tub. Ok, so we get to the cabin and there are actually two houses - a large house at the street and a smaller cottage behind it, same driveway. We figured the smaller one was ours, because there were two bedrooms, but I couldn't find the fireplace anywhere. So Chris called the owner, and he told us it was not listed with a fireplace and that the small house was ours. I was pretty sure that it was, but at least we were in the right place. So we unloaded our car. The fireplace thing kept bugging me, though, so I got out the computer to use the wireless internet to see if it really was listed with a fireplace. (I've been known to make mistakes for sure!) I was not able to connect to the one secured network that I found. We searched the house and couldn't find a jack for wired internet, or a modem or anything else. We didn't want to call the guy again, so we just decided to sit in the hot tub and relax a little.
Ah, the hot tub. When Chris called, he confirmed that we did in fact have access to the hot tub. We saw it right away, but it was on the porch of the bigger house! So since no one seemed to be home at the big house we just figured we'd soak for awhile. We got our suits on, poured beers into plastic cups so as not to bring glass, and were all geared up to sit and relax. Chris went to make sure it was turned on, and... it wasn't. Temp read 65 degrees. And it was only about half full. So he turned it on, we were hoping it would somehow warm up quickly since it wasn't all the way full anyway. So we sat around in our suits for about 45 minutes, and I went up and found the temp to be 66. At that point we gave up on hot tubbing for the evening.
One more complaint and then I'll get to the fun stuff. The second night, the hot tub had finally warmed up and the owner had been over in the afternoon and filled it the rest of the way. (He told us some strange story about somebody stealing his internet router and we could try to use the neighbor's or we could go to the coffee shop in town.) So we were thinking we'd sit in it. Then the kids came out. Apparently there were about 6 pre-teens staying at the big house, and they had a bonfire outside in the fire pit. (A circle of rocks on the ground.) They were running around screaming and seemed to have no adult supervision. We didn't really want to sit on somebody else's porch and let 10 year olds annoy us while we tried to relax in the hot tub. So the hot tub, internet, fireplace, and fire pit didn't happen.
Now what did happen... we had a really fun weekend. We were right around the corner from a hike up to a cool waterfall.
The scary part of the hike was the treacherous walk about 200 yards there, partly along the road!
Katie and I are both working on our photography skills. We got to practice on each others' doggies.
We played Wii and drank some beer, homebrew and Vermont brews that we've been missing.
Chris got to relax in the hammock!
One cool thing was the wire dog runs that they had set up outside. We could just hook the clip to the dog collar, and they could run around outside. They both loved this but even though they had two, we couldn't just put one on each one - when they wrestle around, it is scary because you can see that they get so tangled up and those wires could easily choke or really hurt one of the girls!
We watched the dogs alternate between licking each others' face and fight like siblings. (I didn't take many pics of the fighting part! Naughty girls!)
We ate Chris's delicious homemade bread,
as well as mac and cheese (a la Shelli), steak (a la Curt and Katie after they made an extra trip to buy a new propane tank because the one on the grill was empty), pretzels and cheese dip (a la Shelli and Chris), omelets (a la Chris) and waffles and bacon (a la Curt).
And on Sunday, before heading home, we made the obligatory local brewpub stop at Cave Mountain Brewery.
If you are ever in the Catskills, this place is a must-visit! They had such good beer, good food, and great specials. And a super cool neon sign on the wall!
We read about them online before going, and they were started almost a year ago by a husband and wife team that had been homebrewing for a few years. So we had to check it out! It was so cool because they had some of the same brewing equipment that we have!
(Not the big silver tanks - we wish!)
Then on the drive home, we got to stop at Costco. Lilly had to ride home next to a big case of TP. She seemed a bit perturbed but it was worth it.
Then we got home and I played The Sims for like 2 hours. I can't stop!!
