The Magic Tree House of Bushkill Falls

We found a magic tree house in the middle of an epic road trip and, for nearly an hour, we had the whole beautiful place to ourselves.

Bushkill Falls bills itself the Niagara Falls of Pennsylvania and that, more than any hilarious martini glass hot tubs or heart-shaped beds, drew us to the Poconos.

I was really just looking forward to stretching my legs and working up a little honest sweat as we made our way down a path and followed a sweet stream through the woods.

Then I saw all the cool wooden staircases and suspended bridges and I felt like I had stumbled onto the set of Peter Pan. At 9:00 on a Monday morning, we hiked all the way up to the top of Bridal Veil Falls before we ran into another human.

Thanks to the blissful solitude, we heard nothing but birds, babbling brooks and me saying repeatedly, “Isn’t this cool?”

I thought we might cover the whole red trail in a similar fashion — two tall Wisconsinites huffing peacefully along — but we ran into a family coming from another direction, then, a friendly older couple and, later, a pair of photographers (one of whom kindly took our picture).

Eventually, of course, the trails began to fill up as families and groups arrived.

For a while, though, we could have been Jack and Annie, accidental heroes of another Magic Tree House adventure.