Up the
Mountain

MORNING

Work First

I worked all morning - had some good calls and got things situated. Stressful morning, but I got a lot handled.

Lane came to my house around 12:45, and by then I had fully packed, finished a ton of work, talked to everyone and written most of the emails for the day, and loaded the truck with a cooler, firewood and all my bags. Lane got there and I threw her stuff right in the truck. Got a shower, talked to my parents for a second, and we took off around 1:15.

1:15 PM

Three Hours North

The drive up isn't too bad - about three hours to get to where we stayed, a "lakeside" Airbnb.

4:15 PM

The Cabin

This place was extremely small - a studio with a decent kitchen and bathroom, and then essentially the bedroom. The TV on the wall was nice. And the best part: a fire pit with some strung-up lights in the backyard.

We got there at 4:15 and just settled in. I got on my laptop to finish up some work.

EVENING

Birthday Banners

Lane decided to decorate the place for my birthday - she put up banners and put out the presents she got me. She's so kind. I opened the gifts from her, read her card, and we just talked for a bit before getting a game plan together for the night.

EVENING

Change of Plans

We had reservations at the Delmonico Room in Milford, about 45 minutes from the cabin. We looked at the menu and decided we'd rather go somewhere more local - closer, and better food.

There really was nothing close that was good. Lane called around to a few places until we found one with great reviews called Millbrook on the River. She asked if we'd need a reservation in case it got busy, and the woman on the other end was very hesitant to say no, it shouldn't be too busy - making us think, oh man, there might be a lot of people. Then she said "I'll save you a spot, but you don't need to make a reservation." Uhhh, same thing? But ok, whatever, let's do it.

DUSK

The Road In

It was getting dark, and it's one of those roads you're on for 20 minutes without passing a single thing - hundreds and hundreds of trees on your right and miles of water flowing on your left. Then out of nowhere this rustic place shows up and Maps tells you you've arrived. The parking lot is basically on the side of the road, so I pulled in backwards facing the road, with maybe two other trucks in the lot.

Drinks or Dinner?

We walk up and it's this cool-looking barn, with two people out on rocking chairs smoking cigarettes. Don't know who they were (still don't), but they asked, "You folks here for drinks or for dinner?" We're like, uh, dinner - and they point to the door on the right. We walk in and there isn't a single person in the room. The waitress - who we most likely talked to on the phone - comes walking out, knows exactly who we are, and says "I have a table waiting for you."

The Table of Honor

She sat us near the front at what felt like the table of honor, with single couch seats for chairs - fine with me, just a little lower than I'd like to be. Such an informal place to dine. We got up and walked around to look at some of the stuff they had in there - tons of games.

The Game

We grabbed a game and sat back down. She came over - Lane got a soda and I got an old fashioned, as always. Lane ordered pretzels and I got buffalo wings, and we started the game.

It's simple: two decks of cards, and you flip one from each every round. One card is a letter rule and the other is a topic, and whoever says a valid answer first takes the card. Rounds go quick.

The Biggest Plates I've Ever Seen

The menu was hard - so much good stuff on there. It was more of a German menu, with a lot of Italian on there too. Lane got penne vodka with blackened chicken and I got chicken parm.

We killed like ten wings and two good-sized pretzels, and then they brought out our entrées and oh my goodness - these might have been the largest plates of food for an entrée I've ever seen. We definitely went too hard on the apps. But we still ate a lot, because it was all fantastic. The vodka sauce on Lane's plate was unreal - homemade, and I could not get enough of it. The chicken on mine was perfect and massive, and you can't screw up penne with red sauce.

Leftovers Plan

Halfway through the meal we both agreed there was no finishing. Then we had a great idea: package it all up and eat it tomorrow for dinner at the cabin - a night in instead of what we'd planned. So we got to-go containers and put the rest in there.

Through our apps, drinks and dinner, two other couples came in, ate and left. That was it. We loved it. Walked out, got in the truck, hit the bump getting back on the road and accelerated away.

AFTER 8

Animals

Got home a little after 8 and poured some drinks. I opened my laptop, Lane opened hers, and we got a little work done. Then we closed the laptops and threw on a movie that had come out eight days earlier - Animals, with Ben Affleck. Went to bed before midnight.

MORNING

Two Miles, Forty Degrees

Once again, in typical L & A fashion, we had a slow start to the morning. Did some laptop work, made breakfast, got ready, and then built up the courage to go on a run.

Lane wanted to go. I sort of felt like I needed to - but I also didn't want her running in the mountains by herself, even in the morning. So of course I suited up and ran with her. Two miles, and it was freezing: maybe 40 degrees with a wind chill that burned and elevation that crushed our lungs. But whatever, we did it, and got back to the cabin around 11:30.

1:00 PM

To Warwick

Hung around, showered, made some food to bring with me, and headed out around 1 - straight to Warwick, about a 50 minute drive to Pennings Farm.

2:00 PM

Pennings Farm

Got there a little before 2 and it was packed - cars parked on grass hills, then you walk up to the barn. In the barn they have house-made beers, tons of farm-type desserts and, my favorite at least, a place to buy coffee. I'm not a hot coffee drinker, but it was good to have that day.

Lane waited in line for an apple cider donut, so I joined her and we both got one. It wasn't too warm, so it fell below our expectations. We hung out in the packed barn for a bit. Up the hill past another parking lot is what they call the cidery - a bigger place for drinks and hanging out, with a huge lawn in the back and live music.

The Tractor

Before we reached the cidery, a tractor pulled up - it chugs around the premises bringing people to the different spots for apple picking, pumpkin grabbing, etc. Lane thought, let me ask this driver where it goes, and we ended up getting on. It just went one big loop and dropped us off at the same place - but it was nice, chugging through the property seeing everything. Not a bad ride.

The $5 Sign

Walking toward the cidery, we thought about the timing of everything. Ideally we wanted to be home by sundown, and we still had a hike and walking around Milford ahead of us. Plus, yes, the cidery looked cool - but did I really want drinks before hiking? Uhhh, maybe not. So we were like, ok, let's just go see what it's like up there. Walked up and saw the price of admission: $5. Now, we've never been the stingy type to walk away to save a few dollars - but it seemed like a good sign to turn around. So we walked back to the truck and drove the dirt road back out to the main road.

2:45 PM

Red Fox Coffee

Lane found a place online that was supposed to have really good coffee. She doesn't drink any, but she wanted a steamed milk - great. I remembered seeing it on the way in, about a mile or two back, so we just drove down the road until we hit it around 2:45. Walked in and it had exactly the vibes and people you'd expect at a coffee shop.

Raymondskill Falls

From there it was hike time. The hike was near downtown Milford, another 45 minutes away, so we got in and drove over. On the way we passed a fall festival going on at a restaurant, and I was just hoping it'd still be going when we came back.

Not much further down the road the hikes are right there, and we started Raymondskill Falls. The parking lot was packed - which is weird, because I thought we were going on a 3 mile hike, and a lot of people at a 3 mile trailhead is a little odd. Then we saw some little kids, and even older gentlemen, one with a walking stick. Really interesting. We got on the trail and there were a lot of people. We saw the falls - beautiful, just like any other waterfall - and started walking back up the hill. About one bathroom break, a few selfies and maybe .2 miles later, we reach the parking lot again.

Didn't realize the falls trail was a .3 mile loop. Tons of signs telling us that was the case. Didn't compute until we got back around.

4:00 PM

Tri-State Overlook

But the good news: there's a perfectly good hike right across the street. I took off my vest, put it in the truck and locked the doors. Lane kept her coat on.

It took a minute to walk down the road and find the trailhead, and we were off around 4. Half a mile and nearly 1,000 feet of elevation - we were both dying. But then you get essentially to the top, and the first viewing spot is right there: the Tri-State Overlook. You can see for miles - the Delaware River down below and countless trees of all different colors on both sides of the water, the other side being New Jersey. Wonderful.

The Second Overlook

A little further down the trail was another overlook, a little more covered, that we stopped at.

The Cut-Through

Then we planned our route: walk a little further down the trail, then cut back and take the straight path down to complete the loop, instead of doing the full 3 mile loop. After all, a lot of the downtown shops close by 6.

So we cut back onto this cut-across trail - a straight line, steady decline, wide path covered in thick, light, dead leaves over easy flat dirt. We reached the bottom and my truck a little before 5, then went right into town.

5:00 PM

Milford Wine & Cheese

I ate what I packed real quick and we started walking around downtown. The first place we stopped was Milford Wine & Cheese. They have a wine bar where you can taste and order, maybe get some good cheese pairings and just hang out - would have been cool.

Our pal Rose helped us the whole time - giving us cheese to try, recommending what to get - and we talked with her for 20-30 minutes deciding. We wanted something for us for dinner, and something to bring home to our parents, since we had dinner plans with them the next night and figured a nice cheese app would be good. All of it was delicious and Rose was nothing but helpful. While she was ringing us up she asked, "Are you guys just dating?" - the "just" being the heaviest word in the sentence. Haha, yes, we replied, and she went on to tell us how cute of a couple we were. She was very kind. We ended up getting two kinds of cheese and some crackers, and took off to explore more of downtown.

Downtown Milford

Walked a few blocks, then walked back a few blocks. Luckily for my sake, Lane only went into one store - walked around in there a little before she said, "Ok, I'm done, let's go home." Yes. Sweet.

Free Sampler

I wanted to make a fire that night and realized I needed paper to start it. Saw the Walgreens right there - perfect, they'll have newspaper. We walk in and they're $4.50, maybe 12 different papers... and then at the very bottom I see "free sampler." Ooooo. About 12 newspapers in this free sampler stack. We looked over at the register to make sure we were good to just walk out with them, then took about half the stack.

6:15 PM

The Driveway

Drove back to the cabin as the sun was getting low and got back around 6:15. The way our place works, we share a driveway with the cabin next door - you pull into one driveway and there are two places. We hadn't seen anyone on that mountain the night before or that morning. Our neighbor is taking her time walking up the driveway, oblivious to her surroundings. I'm not trying to scare her, but my headlights are right on her back and she still doesn't realize. I stop and wait as she makes her way down the driveway before finally pulling all the way in, then back my truck into our spot.

And wouldn't you know, she's waiting there to talk to us. Nice lady. I say hi and we make short conversation. Her husband comes out, I say hi, how's it going. Supposed to be a short conversation.

By now I'm getting stuff out of the backseat. She pulls out a card to show us. I look back over, a couple things in my hand, as Lane walks up to take the card - oh no, please be safe near her. She was. Lane walks away and we finally break out of the conversation.

Not saying she was odd, or that we didn't want to talk to anyone - we just wanted to walk in and enjoy ourselves, and figured the interaction would be short and kind. But now Lane has a card with her website on it. Ok, whatever, can't be that bad. The way she said "forever" might have been a little creepy...

Firewood

I wanted to get the fire set up before it got dark-dark, so Lane helped me get the firewood out of the back of the truck. We dumped it all down and I set it up: crumpled newspaper on the bottom, kindling and logs placed well, then left it as is.

Cheese, Wine & Leftovers

We went inside and it was cheese and wine time - poured some wine, broke open one of the cheeses and just had a great time while Lane put on some music. After a little while I heated up our leftovers from the night before in the microwave and we finished off the rest of our meals.

MORNING

The Skylight

Once again, a slow morning. I opened my eyes to the sun streaming through the skylight, just looking up at the trees blowing in the wind right over top of the cabin. You could actually watch the leaves breaking off the branches and making their way down to the dirt, where so many before them had gone.

Beautiful sunny morning with no plans of cardio - fantastic. What wasn't fantastic: checkout was now an hour and a half away, with a three hour drive south waiting for us. We got up, got ready, packed everything into the truck and left with 10 minutes to spare before the 11am checkout.

The Sunday Plan

We actually had Sunday plans, and Waze was taking us back through Milford on the way to Philly anyway, so none of it was out of the way.

11:00 AM

Hawk's Nest

The Hawk's Nest is a windy road cut into the side of a huge cliff, overlooking the river way down below. I believe we actually drove it Friday night after dinner - but I couldn't see a thing on the left or right of the road, so I wouldn't have known. On our way out we searched how far it was: Lane put it in, a 4 minute drive. Oh yeah, how could we not. A 15 minute excursion a little north to stop at the overlook, and then we hopped right back on the road heading south.

South

The drive wasn't too bad. Lane napped for a while - and for once, I abstained from documenting it. Got back to my house around 2.