Road tripping is one of my favorite things to do and for this July 4th weekend, that’s exactly what we did.:) Destination: Mill Run Pennsylvania. Mill Run is a small town in western PA. It’s about 6 1/2 hours drive from New York City. We randomly picked this location because we wanted to do something outdoorsy and since our group will be coming from New York and Chicago, we decided to meet halfway(well almost) instead of driving all the way to one state or the other. We literally just looked at the map and picked out a place in between the 2 states and voila…Mill Run it is!
We had 4 days and 3 nights. A group of 7 with 2 adults, 2 teenagers, and 3 children. We wanted to experience the outdoors so we thought we’d go camping. We played with the idea of pitching a tent but since our destination is quite a drive(10 hrs. from Chicago, 6/12 hrs. from New York), we figured it’d be too much so we thought staying in a cabin would suit us better. There are a few campgrounds in Mill Run but Yogi Bear Jellystone Park caught our attention. It’s a family oriented campground with a ton of activities for the kids although we found out later that there was really not much to do for teenage girls. It’s definitely great for the little ones though. They have 2 pools, waterslides, mini golf, wagon and train rides for the little ones, paintball, tubing, a game room, etc. We booked a one bedroom cabin with a loft and a deck and the kids loved it. There was enough room for all 7 of us. It was actually very clean too which was such a relief. It has a yard with a picnic table, a grill and a fire ring.
On our first day, we just took it easy. We got settled and rested for a little bit. The kids went to the pool and we had hotdogs for dinner. We tried to do a camp fire on our first night and we failed big time! We couldn’t get the fire going. It kept on dying so after like a couple of hours trying we just gave up. I think our firewood was wet.
Our second day was more planned out. We played badminton in the yard then we went to the pool and hung out there pretty much all morning. The pool was crowded but the kids had fun anyways. Lizzie and Chloe just lounged around. Then it was time for lunch which I have to say was quite a bit of a challenge but fun. Preparing a meal for 7 was sort of a big production but when everything was done and we were all seated at the table talking and sharing laughs, it made everything worth it. Those moments are priceless. We went mini golfing and hung out at the game room that night and tried our luck on another camp fire. Luckily this time, it was a success! We made a really good one so the kids had a great time roasting marshmallows. Btw, I just have to say that we made a mistake in thinking that we can do the rest of our grocery shopping there because there were no grocery stores within the 10 mile radius. They had a couple of little ones but they don’t carry much. I couldn’t find a place that sells garlic. So, can you imagine corned beef without garlic? haha..it was a big challenge but we survived:)
Our third day was quite memorable. It was a mix of fun and suffering:) We played paintball! It was the first for all of us so we didn’t know what to expect. We didn’t know what it feels like to get hit by paintballs and of course it didn’t take long to find out. It hurt like a bee sting! It really does hurt but the good thing is, it doesn’t linger and if I had more padding on it probably didn’t hurt as much. I was pretty banged up at the end of the game and to add to my agony, i was sweating profusely because it was a really hot and humid day. I have to give it to the youngest player in my team though. She’s a little more than 3 feet tall and she was carrying a gun that’s almost as big as her and she came around unharmed:) Good job Bella! Overall, it was a lot of fun and I would definitely play again…with more padding this time. It was another fun day and that night, we were still on competition mode so we decided to play Taboo. Taboo is a word guessing game that can last for hours or even days depending on how competitive the players are. In our case, we were competitive enough to keep playing until we used up all the cards! It got pretty intense at one point that we ended up challenging the teenagers only to have our butts kicked. I highly recommend a game of Taboo when you go camping. It never fails to give a great time.
Then it was time to say goodbye. We camped out..we ate..we played games..we laughed..and we bonded. We had 3 days of fun and to top it all off, on our last day we went to see Bear Run’s most popular attraction. Frank Lloyd Wright’s widely acclaimed work “Fallingwater”. It was literally 5 minutes away from our campsite. So, we packed up and made one last stop together as a group before we headed home.
the whole crew
we passed by this river on our way home
nice. i LOVE this blog! 🙂