That's where you wanna go... Down in Poconos!

I just came back from a very leisurely Labor Day weekend with Chris, Alice, and Fred at the Poconos. I was telling everyone that I was going upstate for the long weekend, until someone pointed out to me that the Poconos was actually in Pennsylvania. Well, that's how you know a true New Yorker... when you relegate everything "country" to upstate, haha! That was my first lesson of the trip. Americans are supposed to be bad with geography. :p

The second lesson of the trip -- Chick-fil-A is not pronounced "chick-feel-ah" (whoops), but "chick filet". It's a Southern fast food chain that specializes in delicious juicy fried chicken burgers, worth making a side trip for. Aside from Miami the most south I've ever been in the U.S. would be Raleigh for some CASA event at Duke University back in 2003, where the afterparty was in this dark dank room with one strobe light. I would love to visit the Dirty South sometime though, but I guess Paramus Park's food court Chick-fil-A will have to do for now. 

I got the #2 sandwich and a whipped peach milkshake. Delish? Absolutely. 5000 calories? You betcha.

We passed by so many lush meadows that I told Alice that we should see whether it was really cushy enough to romp around. Soak in those rays, breathe in that clean air... ah, America the Beautiful [cue song]. The grass was actually quite prickly, watch out for thistles!

"Can I blow it into your face?"

This must be what dogs feel like when babies insist on pulling their tails.

Chris was the only one who stayed in the car because he was scared of bugs.

Hahaha, no seriously.

For dinner we went to the local supermarket where for some reason EVERYTHING was on sale. This is the sad economic state of the everyday American. The receipt said that we saved 22% even without using coupons. We bought a set of 5 large steaks for $17 and 10 Greek yogurts for $10 -- I've fulfilled my meat/dairy quota for this month thanks to this weekend. Chris and Alice made yummy steak, creamed spinach, dinner rolls, and corn. Fred and I did nothing. :) 

The last day of the trip we went whitewater rafting on the Lehigh River, which was a total blast! SO MUCH FUN. Surprisingly the water wasn't terribly cold, so we all got by with our rented paddler jackets. Also very surprising was the fact that we didn't have a guide on our raft. Uh-oh. That probably explains why Fred and Alice flew off the raft within the first minute on a baby wave, kicking off our 9-mile adventure rather inauspiciously, hahaha.

I would highly recommend White Water Challengers if you plan to go rafting in New England. I thought that they were really well-organized, and although there was an absurd amount of people on the trip for Labor Day Weekend, it made for more targets for our "splash wars". We didn't really need guides because the river was easy enough for the group to navigate it by ourselves. However, the water was still bumpy enough to give us a couple of surprises here and there. All of us ended up in the river sometime in the trip, whether it's because we fell off or we got pushed off by our "comrades".

A picture of a picture since I'm too cheap to buy the real thing.

I have no recollection of putting up the peace sign, subconscious fob.

Third lesson of the trip -- did you know there is such thing as "extinct marble"? I still call BS on that (how can you even confirm? And they don't procreate, can sit on your kitchen counter forever, so how can they go extinct?) but Alice claims I owe her a bazillion dollars (or Brazilian dollars).