and headed North, up the NY State Thruway, and West, deep into the Catskill Mountains, where we found a quaint little 1830’s farmhouse waiting for our arrival.
I’d been wanting to enjoy the cozy atmosphere of the mountains in the fall for some time, and was more than willing to drive three hours to do it. Three hours turned to five at the hands of rush hour traffic, the rain, and some bad directions. Minor annoyances, to be sure, but not enough to dampen our spirits.
No, the place where our enthusiasm was tested was somewhere on Route 23A (or was it 23?), as we were finally feeling closer to our destination. We were maybe 30 minutes away, thoughts of our impending bucolic weekend dancing in our heads, when we heard sounds from the back seat: a kind of loud burp followed by a splash, followed quickly by another burp-splash, and a third, and a “Mom! Eamonn’s throwing up!” and finally a drenched and smelly 6-year-old beginning to panic about the involuntary mess he’d just made.
That’s not a pretty scene when it occurs on a sunny day in your own neighborhood, but it’s orders of magnitude worse after dark, on a lonely stretch of unfamiliar highway, in the cold rain, while driving a rental car that is not equipped with so much as a box of tissues to aid in the cleanup.
All I can say is that I have never been more happy to have a bag of clean clothes in the trunk, or to be en route to a destination with a washer & dryer.
We’re laughing about it now, but I must say it took a few minutes to find the humor in the situation, and a few days to rid the car of the stink. Poor Eamonn. It’s going to be a long time before he orders another strawberry shake…
I chose to illustrate this post not with images from that Friday night (you’re welcome), but instead with photos from our Saturday, where we still dealt with much rain, but we also got to meet some chickens, gather a basket of eggs, drive around the countryside, and stop in at a few book stores.
I enjoyed a quiet morning coffee on the front porch by myself. I started a knitting project twice and ripped it back out as many times. We lit the old wood-burning stove and felt it warm up the whole house. We had hot chocolate before bed.
The house was lovely, and I’d have stayed an extra night or two if it was feasible. Arriving late on Friday, having rain all day Saturday, and leaving early on Sunday made it feel more like a day trip than a weekend getaway. It was nice, but entirely too short. Next time? I’d like a three day weekend, minimum. And we’ll skip the strawberry shakes en-route, thankyouverymuch!
I made the mistake of reading this already not feeling too well…being that I have a phobia of vomit it left me feeling, um slightly worse. So yes, thank you for posting other pictures. Cute little place you stayed at, sounds like fun fun!! 🙂
.-= See katiesbubbles’s latest blog post: Gratitude Friday =-.
Oh, I hope I wasn’t too graphic there, LOL! Sorry if I made your tummy issues worse! I tend to have a stomach of steel, when it comes to talking about these things. (Being there, not so much, though.)
that stove is to die for! I need a vacation like this far away form the city. Good Job!
Isn’t it just charming? It heated up the whole house, too. We fired it up around 7pm, let burn out by bedtime, and the central heating didn’t need to kick in until somewhere around 4am!
ok. so that happened to my family when i was little. all 4 in the back of the big station wagon and the brother started it. the smell, ickie and whatever else must have been ‘contagious’ because we all ended up repeating him! poor mom and dad in the front. what a long trip that was.
Oh, your poor parents, LOL!
Yep, been there, kid (or three) yakking in the back seat and us with nothing to clean him up, and miles from home. Oh the joys of parenthood. My DIL took my 5-year-old granddaughter on a short business trip with her. The second night Gracie reacted to something she ate and pretty much decimated the bed and her mother in the hotel room. She was embarrassed, but the hotel maid was gracious and took it in stride.
The joys……
.-= See Marty’s latest blog post: A Boy and His Fish =-.
Haha, well, I guess every parent needs a good vomit story. I know my parents have at least one, courtesy of me 🙂
It’s all (minus vomit) just beautiful!!
.-= See Nikki/WhiMSy llove’s latest blog post: Week in Review =-.
Yes, thankfully the camera didn’t come out during the back seat puke fest 😀
Beautiful pictures! I was wondering, is this a place that you rented? If so, is there a name to it or a web site? I’d love a getaway there!
I was going to ask the very same thing! Details, please!
Sure! Here’s the website: Rich Country Farmhouse
Maybe if I send enough people their way, they’ll give me a free weekend, LOL!
what i beautiful place and (short) visit lisa!
was it just car sickness? i hope so. you know i’m going to go check out that link up there…
i hope you get to go again for a full vacation!
.-= See heather’s latest blog post: we have improvement! =-.
Did you plan the “Milk for Health” sign in the last picture after the vomiting description? I found it quite funny.
.-= See dani@little fists’s latest blog post: Halloween Meme =-.
Though I think we can all agree that your weekend started off with a “bang”, the tranquility and beauty certainly seems to have made up for it! The farmhouse was magical and I commend you for finding the most picture-perfect setting for a weekend get-a-way. Too bad we don’t have anything like that here in the South.
New to your blog and absolutely LOVE it!
Welcome and thank you! Yes, it really was an idyllic setting – I hope we can go back someday. Minus the rain and minus the throwing up 😉
[…] done the HomeAway.com thing before, and 3/4 of us had done the Lancaster thing before, but we’d never done both together. A few […]