We had some plans for this past weekend. Every January, for 3 years now, I think, we go up to Warren for their Winterfest. The first two years, it was purely accident that we were in Warren the same weekend it was going on, but this year, we made a point to find out the date and plan on going.

We managed to sleep in until just before 8 and than made breakfast together. On the menu: stuffed french toast with fresh strawberries, found on sale at the IGA, frozen black raspberries and a cream cheese mixture, breakfast sausage links and scrambled eggs for me, dippy for Matt.

It certainly wasn’t the breakfast of champions, but boy, was it good. Plus, we weren’t hungry most of the day.

Warren is about an hour and a half away, and Winterfest is located at Chapman State Park, about 20 minutes further. Usually we stop in Warren at Allegheny Book Mart to peruse the books and antiques and McCulla’s Steakhouse where we eat lunch. This year, we skipped both of those in hopes that we would get to Winterfest in time for the Polar Bear Plunge and the dog sled races.

Turns out, this year, they cancelled the Polar Bear Plunge because of the terribly low temperatures. We managed to see some of the dog sled pulls, which are much like tractor pulls, but with dogs, and we wandered around the booths. I got a new hat, a nice knitted one with a fleece lining that is very very warm, and we tasted and bought some of those dip/spread mixes that you often see people selling at festivals and the like.

I missed out on pictures of the dog sled races but we went into the husky rescue booth and met some very pretty and friendly dogs. I didn’t take my camera out much because of the cold, not only for it, but because my fingers froze nearly instantly, it seemed, when taken out of my gloved to push the buttons on the camera.

We did a little ice fishing, though it was extremely windy out on the ice and Matt was wearing tennis shoes, for some reason unknown to me, that had quickly been soaked through. No fish, but we weren’t out for very long and I’ve heard you can be out fishing on the ice for hours without a single bite. This being my first time, though, I do wish we had caught something.

We went back to the concessions and shared a pulled pork sandwich, some cookies and a very tasty hot cider before heading toward the trails for a little hiking only to turn around shortly after because of the aforementioned soaked shoes.

One of these years, we’ll get it all in. Maybe next year, we’ll stay up there Friday or Saturday night, so we have that second day.