Cook Forest Winter Get-a-Way | Travel Tuesday | Weekend Wrap-Up

Oh Friday we packed up the car and headed for a Cook Forest winter get-a-way. For Christmas, our adopted grandfather Mark had gifted us a certificate to stay at one of his favorites cabin rentals in Cook Forest. I was hoping for a bit more snow, but with the way the weather has been, I was thankful for the little bit we saw.

With hubby and Duke the golden in tow we enjoyed a lovely weekend full of nothing more than relaxing. Upon check-in we were reminded that we were staying in the smallest and the oldest cabin that they had. I don’t think the lady working check-in was sure we wanted the more rustic one, but after assuring her we tent camped, she was fine. She did however inform us that a squirrel lived in the ceiling…

While we didn’t get much sleep but enjoyed relaxing in the lovely Cook Forest Mountains.

By Friday evening Aaron and I were laughing our faces off… Trip 3 – Us 0. Why you ask?  Well, for starters we had picked up his laptop from the repair shop on the way up. (This guy has a PC, GASP!) Our plan was to watch our favorite show on DVD Friday night. Who would have known that the new Windows 8.1 computers DO NOT come with a program to watch DVD’s on?!?! Ugh! Stupid PC’s! We spent over an hour trying to download programs to play our DVD’s and finally gave up and decided to make dinner.

Here is where strike two came in. With all the craziness of the last few weeks we decided to give Blue Apron a try. (It’s one of those pre-prepped farm to kitchen meals in a box. You simply take out the ingredients and make a fancy dinner.) Upon receiving the box of food, I had skimmed the directions and grabbed the pots and pans. What I failed to grab were three main things I needed to cook and season the food… 1) Olive Oil  2) Salt  3) Pepper

We were up the creek without a paddle 30 minutes from a small store and just ready to relax and eat. Thankfully I had grabbed some cheese try odds and ends on our way out the door. That’s were curveball #3 hit. Half of the cheese had molded and so had some of the meats. The whole thing was becoming quite funny at this point so we created a more rustic version of a meat and cheese tray.

By Saturday morning we hit the backroads and Cook Forest State park trails to see what was left of the snow.

My poor car is filthy!!

We also enjoyed the last bit of snow for some cross country skiing. This photo of us was my sad attempt to take a family picture. I’m just cracking up over Duke and I’s faces.

Thankfully a bystander helped us out and took a real one.

A few lessons learned, a crash course in cross country skiing and hundreds more miles driving around like old people on a Sunday later, we are home and back to work. If you ever need a good day-trip area, head to Cook Forest. The mountains there are lovely! If it’s cold enough, they have a spot to ice skate. You can rent cross country skies and there are plenty of trails to hike on and enjoy the mountains.

Happy Travel Tuesday!

– Tiffany