A Day Trip

My son had Saturday off from work, which is unusual, so we decided to take a day trip somewhere since we haven't really done much this summer.  We didn't want to spend a lot of money but we wanted to have some fun so we searched places where we could do two of our favorite things, mini golf and hiking.

We usually like to try out new places where we haven't played mini golf before. We like to compete against each other for the lowest score. Plus it's fun to see the different challenges each mini golf course offers at each hole. I like to go last so I can watch the other family members and take mental notes of what doesn't work.

We chose a place in PA that had a water park and mini golf. Then we drove a short ways further west and found a great hiking trail near Lake Wallenpaupack. Don't you love that name? Anyway, the trail was about 2 miles long through some very rocky terrain and followed the water for about half of it, which was really nice.

This hole had a small basket with a big green backstop. There is a metal bar on the green in front of the basket that you hit your ball against, which sends the ball flying into the air and hopefully into the basket where it is supposed to fall through the hole at the bottom of the basket straight into the cup for an instant hole-in-one. This one was fun even though I couldn't get my ball into the basket. My husband didn't have a problem though.

The Wishing Well hole. This is my oldest son.

Here is the Outhouse hole, no pun intended, which my youngest son is attempting. There were 3 holes in the "house" and to get a hole-in-one you were supposed to get your ball to go through the center one.

This was one of the more level parts of the hiking path we took. It was level but very full of rocks. We really had to watch where we were walking.

There was a stone wall fence along much of the trail. I love old stone fences. Someone did a LOT of back breaking work building that fence long ago. Here is a beautiful butterfly sunning himself on a large rock of the fence.

I may be smiling but I was out of breath walking up that incline. It might have something to do with my lack of regular exercise. But it was a lot of fun.

The whole gang on the shore. We took a break from the hike to enjoy the view of the lake. There were a lot of boats on the water that day even though you can't see them in this picture.

And on our way home after a fun family outing we were blessed with this breathtaking sunset.