Girls’ Weekend in the Catskills

Hello friends! I am typing up the beginning of this post from the sky en route to North Carolina after a weekend away in the Catskill Mountains of southeastern New York. I spent the past two days with my best friends from college and it was just what all of us needed.

A few months ago we set out to plan a weekend away together and after considering a few locations, we ultimately settled on the Catskills after my friend Cherayne weighed in and said great things about the area. We were hoping for a mountain retreat in a big, cozy cabin and the Catskills fit the bill.

We stayed in an Airbnb home we found in Elka Park, a very small town located southwest of Tannersville. While it was much warmer than expected and we didn’t ski during our trip, it was fun to be in the mountains and see some remaining melting snow. Our main goal of the trip was to spend quality time together and relax and that’s exactly what we did during our time away!

We all arrived on Friday and flew into New York City before caravanning 2.5 hours to our house. Though half of the group arrived earlier in the day, by the time my group made it to the house it was nearly 9 p.m. so we were more than ready to change into our pajamas and dig into a homemade dinner and sip some drinks by the fire. It felt so, so good to be together again and I cannot tell you how good it felt to laugh so hard that it hurt with my friends repeatedly throughout the weekend.

Everyone was clearly psyched to be together and stayed up late chatting and drinking wine until we could no longer keep our eyes open. Thankfully I’m not the only early riser in this bunch because despite going to bed rather late, all of us were up around 7 a.m. Saturday morning. We eased into the day with coffee and a big spread of homemade breakfast tacos before changing and heading out into Tannersville.

Though Tannersville is quite small, we had fun popping into the various shops, trying some of the local food and drinks and exploring the area a bit. Eventually we made our way to Scribner’s Catskill Lodge for afternoon drinks by a fire.

(I think longtime readers may remember these girls! Hiiii Merri, Cherayne, Ashley, Laurel, Leah, Kaitlyn and Krystal!)

Scribner’s is a beautiful lodge outfitted with a handful of guest rooms, a restaurant, bar and great views of the mountains and we easily spent nearly two hours sipping our drinks and chatting away.

Eventually we were ready for a late lunch and made our way to Hunter Mountain Brewery for some food, cider and beer.

Once we were all sufficiently full, we made our way back to the house, changed into comfy clothes and played a bunch of games.

One new-to-me game we played that was ridiculously fun was called The Salad Bowl Game and it felt like a combination of Taboo and Charades and it was all kinds of hysterical. You need absolutely nothing to play the game other than some paper, a pen and a bowl, so it’s perfect for vacation when you may not have room to pack real games. I think our group had an especially great time with this one because we’d include random things from college or our nearly 17 years of friendship as part of the words we needed to guess in the game which made it all the more hilarious. I cannot recommend this game enough!!

Eventually we realized it was time for us to change for our dinner reservation but we all ended up filling up on chips, dip, candy and cookies during our game time that none of us were really in the mood for a fancy dinner. We figured changing into our pajamas early and ordering pizza a little later sounded like a much better alternative.

Before our pizza arrived, we took some time to do a little gift exchange. We made the exchange white elephant style so we didn’t buy for anyone in particular and drew numbers to see who would select the first gift. (We also set a $20 spending limit and opted for decent gifts rather than joke presents usually incorporated into a white elephant exchange.)

It was a fun way to extend the holidays a bit since we weren’t able to plan our trip in December and I ended up with a set of magnetic bookmarks, a jade roller I cannot wait to try and a new book which was a great fit for me!

Once pizza arrived, we all dug in and quickly followed dinner with s’mores before we continued to talk into the night.

We joked that our weekends away together are becoming less and less eventful (a big departure from our college and bachelorette party days) but we are all more than okay with this shift. It’s just so incredibly nice to be together when life seems to get busier and busier and our trips together seem to become more challenging to coordinate. I’m just so grateful for these women in my life and our 17+ years of friendship.

Sunday morning we dug into homemade frittatas and leftover pizza for breakfast and spent our remaining time at the cabin soaking up our last few hours together as we organized our things for our travel ahead.

Eventually we made the 2.5 hour drive back to the airport and said our goodbyes before boarding our respective flights and heading home. I always hate to leave my friends but I’m so incredibly grateful for the time we had away together.

I arrived home on Sunday around dinnertime and had about an hour with the boys before it was bedtime. I missed my guys and Sadie so, so much and it felt great to give them all big hugs and hear all about their weekend together!

As for the week ahead, it’s back to business as usual around here. I hope to pop in and chat with you guys here a few times before the weekend and hope you guys all have a great Monday!