Out on Route 209

  This is a short story for those of you who live in a big city like New York and do not know what to do with their free time in the weekends. Most of the people I know spend a day in front of the TV set, or out of boredom go out shopping. Not me, I need to go out of the city to see new places, to smell the fresh country air, as one of my friends said sarcastically, "I need to smell the manure". Yes, the smell of fresh cut grass and manure is refreshing, helps me unwind reminding me that I am not a robot on an assembly line, but a free human being. This weekend "Julie", our reliable '98 red Volvo station wagon named after the fourth of July when I bought her, took us on a real adventure.
        My daughter woke up Saturday morning at 6 a.m., we packed our swimming suits, took the towels and Muffy, and we decided to have a trip along the Delaware valley. I never like to plan a trip. Once on a road we play a game: make a right here? a left there?....end result we always end up discovering beautiful places and most of all we always have a good time. Lots of laughs and jokes. This time we stumbled upon the Raymonskill and Dingman falls.
     At Raymonskill we climbed a stony trail leading to the enchanting waterfall.

     Needless to say reaching the top  made me feel ten times lighter and my quads trembled and trembled. Two bottles of water later we were both on cloud nine.....now that's a view! On the road again we saw a sign, "Dingmans Falls-next right". Ok that's for us, let's go and investigate! To our surprise this time, we walked through the forest on an extraordinary wooden platform leading us to the Silver Thread waterfall. A spectacular vertically straight drop of water that simply mesmerized us.

                                  
                   A short walk from here---WOW! What a sight! Dingmans Falls!

For the most courageous there is another trail that leads to the top of this waterfall.

 

             Pictures of lichen found on a tree.

All this wonder can be found on Route 209, Delaware Water Gap. We loved every minute of our venture here, and will definitely come back again.