As we’ve seen from my fellow MMCers, most New Yorkers travel to The Hamptons, Fire Island, The Jersey Shore, or similar beach-y destinations to escape the infamous NYC summer heat. But my family decided to spend a few blissful summer days in the cooler mountainous region of The Poconos for an a-typical summer vacation.

After a five hour drive (normally only two and half hours), we arrived in complete darkness, to our rented family cabin. The little house wasn’t actually so little with six bedrooms, a finished basement, wrap around deck and family room. The house smelled like a musty summer day with an alluring trace of scented vanilla candles. It was deep set into the woods, surrounded by forest and wildlife (including a few bears which roamed our front lawn). Everything in the house was made of dark oak wood – the beds, the cabinets, the chairs and even the house itself – matching flawlessly, and perfectly appropriate for its surrounding country feel.

Excluding our quick, but necessary trip to the Shopping Outlets, we immersed ourselves in country living. We bbq’d on the deck by night, sat by the lake with our bagged lunches and walked around the historic town of Jim Thorpe by day. We also went White Water Rafting along the Lehigh River, where, much to my dismay, we were handed a life vest and a paddle and told to go explore the waves of the river on our own. A fun, and interesting, way to learn how to travel through the rapids!

My favorite part of my a-typical summer vacation was the scenery. Leaps of mountains and pastures of green for miles upon miles. And while there wasn’t much “beach”, there were beautiful lakes and rivers that ran throughout the towns of middle Pennsylvania, almost hidden between and amongst the forests.

So what’s the moral of my story? Well, sometimes “a-typical” can actually be quite refreshing. After a not-so-hot-until-recently summer in the city, escaping for a few days to experience the comfort of home surrounded by nature was almost…energizing. So as the summer dwindles down, maybe it’s not such a bad idea to get the engines roaring with something, anything, a bit out of the ordinary.