Do you love the blue skies that you can see from the top of a mountain? If that's something that you love to do but your kids don't, then you definitely need to read the story below which is an original wrote by Eileen Ogintz and which can be completely read from MSN.com when you give it a try... Anyway, just take some time to read it:
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By Eileen Ogintz
Tribune Media Services
updated 4:21 p.m. ET Jan. 29, 2009
We miss the turn on the dark, winding road, a road that seems to go on forever. But, then, there it is, right in front of us, a castle, a sprawling, Victorian castle.
Not exactly what you'd expect just north of New York City. “So random,” mutters 17-year-old Melanie from the back seat, as we arrive at Mohonk Mountain House, which has welcomed families for the last 140 years — yes, 140!
Honestly, I'd had to do a hard sell to convince her, and her 24-year-old brother, to come this weekend (the promise of a spa treatment helped), but she wasn't disappointed, I'm glad to report. And neither were we.
The 265-room resort, located in the Hudson River Valley, is a rarity. Green before there was such a concept, it has been owned by the same family since it began as a 10-room inn. Mohonk's focus is on nurturing family togetherness amid 85 miles of hiking trails and thousands of acres of pristine wilderness that surround the resort, including the 7,000-acre Mohonk Preserve, the largest in New York State, which was started with land donated from the resort.
“The world is crazy and people come here and say Mohonk is the same,” says Nina Smiley, whose family is the fourth generation to run Mohonk Mountain House. These days, that certainly is an appeal, as other historic hotels around the country are discovering.
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