It happens sometimes. And rather than let the cabin sit empty for two nights, we did something we almost never do.

We became the guests.

Which, it turns out, is a pretty good way to figure out what your rental actually needs.

A pizza cutter, for one.

Extra sheets in the closet. A few simple checkout instructions so nobody has to wonder what to do before they leave. Little things you don’t necessarily notice when you’re the one stocking the cabin instead of staying in it.

I started a list.

And then there’s what I’m calling The Whimsical Someday List—the things Owl House absolutely does not need, but that I can’t stop imagining anyway.

First on the list: a little one-hole mini putt next to the fire pit.

The is already a frame out there. Maybe a DYI next spring. A little “OWL” obstacle that you putt through…

Nobody needs it. But it would be something fun, most cabins don’t have.

We mainly did exactly what I hope people do when they come here.

Not too much.

We played checkers inside on one of those oversized Cracker Barrel boards. I thought I was holding my own until my daughter started pulling off triple jumps and absolutely crushed me. I need to relearn the strategy of checkers, seriously.

There were a couple of naps. A chapter or two of a book on the porch.

We fed Milo, the cat who hides under the back porch, roams the few neighbors and is the “outdoor cat” that just started showing up. Ok we love him already), and he likes a good scratch, and salmon pate.

.We hopped on our bikes and rode straight from the cabin to the Rails to Trails. Being able to leave the cabin on two wheels and end up on the trail without getting in the car was pretty awesome.

At night, we sat by the fire pit and watched the sun go down over the meadow. It seriously is the reason we bought this place. The view is outstanding.

The weekend was laidback with o itinerary. No list of things we needed to squeeze in before summer was over.

Checkers. Bikes. A book. A couple of naps. A fire. A sunset.

Just enough.

School has started back up. Labor Day is on the calendar. And the forest guest mix will shift into a new crowd.

September might actually be my favorite weather we get all year. I call it the sleeper month. Good sun, but not too hot. Maybe you need a sweater at night. Perfect hiking, canoeing and horseback riding weather. The river doesn’t close on Labor Day like the pools.

And right behind it comes October, when the leaves turn and the whole place looks like it’s borrowing colors from Bob Ross’s paint palette.

Every year, summer seems to end before you’ve done everything you meant to do with it.

There’s always another festival you make it to. Another evening you meant to spend outside. Another weekend you thought you’d find time for.

You never get it all in.

Maybe you’re not supposed to.

Maybe that’s the lesson of an unexpected weekend at Owl House.

Sometimes the smallest version of the plan was the real one all along.

And sometimes a guest cancels.

Nobody cancels the sunset.

A thank-you, before September gets here

You are one of the first 100 people to sign up for Cook Forest Diaries, thank you.

You were here before there was much of anything to be here to support the work of documenting what makes the journey and the forest so special.

I have some extras from the first edition of the Cook Forest Diaries Snail Mail Club, and I’d like to send some of them to you as a little thank-you for being early.

If you were one of those first 100 digital subscribers and would like one, just reply to this email with your mailing address by August 30.

That’s it.

No form. No link. Just reply with your address, and I’ll put one in the mail.

This is simply a one-time thank-you for the first 100. No upgrade. No strings attached.

Thank you for being here early.

More from the forest soon,

Sara

So when someone looks at our rate and thinks it’s just a motel room — I get it. But it’s never just a motel room.

What “just a motel room” actually is

It’s a Wi-Fi-working, coffee-stocked, hot-shower-having, good-bed-sleeping little landing pad near one of the most beautiful forests in Pennsylvania. It’s the place where you pull right up to the door, drop the bags, let the dog sniff around, make a cup of coffee, and exhale.

Is the stay simple? Yes — that’s the whole point. But simple for the guest doesn’t mean simple for the business. Somebody has to be the exhale so you can have yours.

What $55 buys

Every time a guest checks out, the room has to get back to zero. Not mostly fine. Not good enough. Zero.

Clean sheets, clean towels, fresh pillowcases, bath mat, coffee pods, cream, sugar, toilet paper, trash bags, cleaning supplies, and a person doing the actual work — because rooms do not clean themselves, no matter how many times I’ve asked nicely. And because this is a motel near the forest — muddy shoes, dog hair, campfire smell, snack crumbs, wet towels, sunscreen, bug spray, and every so often a mystery that makes you stare into the middle distance and reconsider your life choices.

The room has to look like nobody was ever there. Even though somebody absolutely was — maybe with a dog, maybe with kids, maybe with both, which is its own kind of chaos and, frankly, its own kind of Olympic event.

Why one-night stays cost us more

Most cabins around here run a two-night minimum. We don’t. Even on holiday weekends, we allow one-night stays, because we know not everyone needs — or can afford — two nights in the forest. Sometimes you just need one.

But here’s the part guests never see: that $55 reset doesn’t care whether you stayed one night or two. It’s the same sheets, same towels, same labor, same supplies — whether we’re turning the room over after one night or after two.

Which means a one-night guest costs us the same $55 in reset, spread over half the revenue. A two-night guest spreads that same cost over twice the nights. Do the math across a season and one-nighters are, dollar for dollar, our least efficient stay to run. Great for the guest who only has a Tuesday. Less great for our spreadsheet.

We keep offering them anyway. Because “just one night” is sometimes exactly what someone needs — and we’d rather absorb that cost than turn away the person who only has a Tuesday.

Why it’s not cheap

The room isn’t cheap. It’s clean. It’s thoughtful. It’s updated. It’s pet-friendly. It’s close to the trails, the river, the trees, and the reason people came here in the first place.

The stay should feel easy. Easy isn’t the same thing as cheap. That’s the whole job of hospitality — making the work disappear like a very tired magic trick. You shouldn’t walk in thinking about laundry math, or who stayed there before you, or what the coffee pods cost. You should just open the door and feel like we were expecting you.

That’s what a good room does. And that’s why cheap motel rooms are usually cheap for a reason.

So now you know a little magic behind the door. It’s not a wizard. It’s just us, a Costco run, and roughly five hundred coffee pods.

From the woods,

Sara

Every year it’s the same. Six months out, the rooms go. Then the River Otter. Then the Owl House. By the time the actual weekend rolls around, there’s a waitlist for the waitlist — for a creature nobody’s ever gotten a clean photo of.

The funny thing is, Bigfoot isn’t really what fills these rooms.

Belief does.

I asked two guests this weekend how they’d found us. Online, they said. We were closer than the other places, and the reviews were great. That’s it. That’s the whole answer.

A stranger wrote something kind about a room they stayed in once, and another stranger, two states away, believed them enough to book.

That’s the business, when you strip it all the way down. Not marketing. Not algorithms. Not discount codes. Belief — passed hand to hand, screen to screen, until it turns into a car in the parking lot.

The forest doesn’t change for any of this, of course.

The same pines that were standing long before anyone thought to name a creature after them are still standing now. The Clarion keeps running the same direction it always has. Meanwhile, the parking lot fills with out-of-state plates, the vendors are setting up their booths a few miles down the road and a few guests guests leaving are just realizing it’s Bigfoot Weekend in the forest.

Bigfoot, if he’s smart, is probably deep on a trail napping and wondering why he’s a celebrity.

This year, check-in came with a little extra: a card in each room asking each guest one question — what’s your Bigfoot name? It all runs off your birthday month and year. A first name that sounds suitably mysterious, pair it with a last name off the list — of Vowinckel. of the Pines. the Unseen. of the Hollow. the Wanderer. of the Allegheny — and just like that you have a fun new name.

I posted it the game on Facebook and it was one of my most engaged with posts of the year. Noted. More games coming.

Saturday afternoon, I ran an errand — an hour, maybe two — and when I got back, two women were exactly where I’d left them: at the bistro tables outside their room, deep in conversation, like the conversation itself was the reason they’d driven up here.

“Still here”, one of them said, half-laughing, like she expected me to ask why.

I told her that’s the whole point.

Not the cryptid. Not the Bigfoot swag.

Just two people, a couple of chairs, and enough quiet to actually finish a sentence.

Sometimes belief looks a lot like staying one more night.

At the festival itself, I handed over twenty-seven dollars for a lobster roll from a food truck. Twenty on funnel cakes. Seven on a lemonade nobody liked.

The girls spent their entire Bigfoot budget on resold fidget squishies, which is either the most or least on-brand thing that happened all weekend — and is honestly its own article.

Here’s what I keep noticing, year over year: this is the one weekend nobody’s pretending.

The men in camo aren’t “ironically” into this. The eight-year-old clutching a trading card isn’t either. The woman still sitting at the bistro table three hours later isn’t either.

And neither, increasingly, am I.

Not in the six-foot-something wandering the woods exactly, but in what Bigfoot seems to reveal about people. Every year, an entire town leaves room in the story for something nobody can prove. And in the process, they remind me how much of life works that way.

A stranger’s review.

A friendship.

A new business.

A long drive into the woods.

Most worthwhile things begin before there’s proof.

Maybe that’s why this weekend works so well. Officially, it’s about a creature that doesn’t exist. Unofficially, it’s about belief itself.

Eight rooms. Two cabins. One weekend a year where every one of them fills because people believe a story might be worth following.

So here’s the only takeaway I’ve got: find the thing in your own week that doesn’t need to be proven to be worth doing anyway. A conversation that runs long. A drive that’s probably too far for what’s at the other end. A dream that’s still mostly a sketch on paper.

Book it anyway.

Stay anyway.

We’ll keep the light on.

From the woods,

Hollow of the Hollow-AKA Sara

We bought a vacant motel in one of the most overlooked forests in America believing people would come.

Then the HVAC failed. The water shut off on Fourth of July. A pipe burst on Valentine’s weekend.

Nobody draws you a map of the Fire Swamp.

If you’re from my generation, you know what that means. In The Princess Bride, the danger wasn’t what you expected. The danger was that you couldn’t anticipate it until you were already standing in it.

When we bought Cook Forest Inn in July of 2022, it looked exactly like what you’d imagine: dark rooms, strange smells, deferred maintenance, the kind of place people drove past instead of toward. Like an old wood barn met Schitt’s Creek Motel.

And yet I was charmed immediately.

Not for what it was. For what It could be.

A former boss once quoted me Teddy Roosevelt.

If you read yesterday’s post, you know the one: “The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena... who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.”

I didn’t understand how much I would need that line until I was standing in the Fire Swamp.

The first two years nearly broke me.

Lost focus. Bad decisions. Embarrassment. Burnout. Family strain. Financial strain. Health issues. Identity loss.

Everything people politely summarize later as: “It was a hard season.”

What I’m not ready to tell is its own story.

What I can tell you is this: I know it will not be ego or pride that gets me through.

Round One: The HVAC

When we bought the inn during COVID, the communal restaurant space got pushed down the priority list.

Then we lived through our first winter and learned very quickly how important that space actually was.

Winter needs somewhere to gather. Somewhere warm and communal. Without that kind of space, winter occupancy drops hard — like single digit numbers hard. There is no downhill skiing in Cook Forest.

So we made a plan: bring the restaurant up to a basic functional level. Morning coffee. Continental breakfast. Communal dinners, eventually. Events. A place where people could create, reconnect, or disappear quietly for a few hours with a book and a view of the trees.

Then the HVAC system failed — an entire commercial system serving both the apartment where we lived and the restaurant space.

One phone call and the restaurant budget disappeared.

The paint and decor ideas are still on my phone. Still in folders pulled from magazines.

This summer, this space is my arena.

Round Two: Fourth of July

Our second season. Return guests. More direct bookings. Good signs.

Then at 2 p.m. on July 3rd, I discovered there was no water.

Every room was full.

Families were arriving with coolers and sunscreen and river plans, completely unaware that our entire operation was about to collapse because of a blinking red light on a commercial water system.

The failed part was a $500 component inside a $25,000 system that was less than two years old. Basically a BMW in the basement. And nobody had told us to keep a backup, or that the UV light dies around year two and must be specially ordered.

As someone who spent most of her professional life in inventory and supply chains, that detail felt like a knife to the stomach.

We called every arriving guest. Explained. Refunded what needed refunding.

$4,000 in real revenue gone over a holiday weekend because of one missing part.

And then we closed the property and took our kids to the fair. Because what else do you do?

You get yourself a $7 fresh squeezed lemonade and a funnel cake and you watch your kids play $10 games for dollar store prizes.

Then you order a back-up part, so it never happens again.

Round Three: River Otter

Valentine’s weekend 2026. One of the few winter weekends that actually books.

A couple had reserved River Otter cabin — wood fireplace, river view, digital detox.

Todd went down before check-in to give it the “wow” factor.

As he leaned into the door, he heard rushing water.

A pipe had burst. Water everywhere. Seventy-five-year-old pine floors soaking it in.

By some miracle, we found them another cabin at 6 p.m. on Valentine’s weekend.

They were kind about it. We lost money. Everyone survived.

Which, honestly, becomes the definition of success more often than people admit.

The forest has slowly changed what success looks like to me.

I used to think it meant certainty. Control. Status. Momentum.

Now I think it looks smaller than that.

One smiling guest. One repaired room. One solved problem. One good day.

One person leaving here thinking they might finally start the thing they’ve been putting off.

If you’re sitting somewhere right now with your own version of a saved paint color folder — a business idea, a first chapter, a dream you keep circling — maybe this is your reminder.

The path was never supposed to feel certain.

Nobody gets a map of the Fire Swamp beforehand.

You walk in anyway. Your arena is waiting.

One Gladiator still standing.

From the forest, Sara

If this found you at the right moment — consider joining the annual or monthly paid version. It includes the Snail Mail Club. A handwritten letter from the forest. An original print from our first artist, Ashley Wolff. Some other forest treasures. Yours, six times a year, in an envelope. About the cost of a latte a month. Its not to late to be part of the beginning with the first letter mailing in June.

Join the Snail Mail Club →

UPGRADE TO SNAIL MAIL

I don’t think he knew how much I would need it later.

He also called would joke about how much work the inn needed. He’d ask me how “the arena” was going.

What I didn’t know when we started: the forest is its own arena. With its own villains. The kind you don’t see coming — not because you weren’t paying attention, but because nobody draws you a map of the Fire Swamp before you walk into it.

The inn dismantled the old version of me.

Or maybe stripped away the parts that couldn’t survive this kind of building.

Who I am now is still a WIP, just like the inn.

Some days the only thing that helps is knowing someone else named it first.

Theodore Roosevelt delivered this speech at the Sorbonne in Paris in 1910. It is called Citizenship in a Republic. Most people know it by one passage. I remember it, when I am in a desperate season of building something real.

If you are building something — anything — read the whole speech.

The Man in the Arena — Full Text

The line I come back to most is the last one.

Not the victory. Not the striving.

At least he fails while daring greatly.

That’s the one.

From the forest, Sara

“Let me guess,” I’d say. “Drew.”

Every. Single. Time.

So naturally, I’ve decided she belongs on my waitlist.

I have a running joke with myself that Drew Barrymore is going to show up at Cook Forest Inn one day.

Not because she’s famous. But because she gets it. If you’ve ever watched her show, you know she’s the kind of person who finds magic in the small, earthy, imperfect things. The kind of mom who’d hand her girls a bucket and say go find something alive. The kind of woman who’d hold an Ashley Wolf art print up to the window light and say — out loud, to no one — “this is so magical.”

That’s a Cook Forest person.

And I have a feeling she already knows it.

Why Is It Called the Enchanted Forest?

Cook Forest State Park earned that name honestly — and it’s not marketing fluff.

The park sits in Clarion County in northwestern Pennsylvania and contains one of the most significant stands of old-growth forest in the entire northeastern United States. We’re talking ancient white pines and eastern hemlocks — some stretching 175 feet tall — that have been growing, undisturbed, for 300 or so years.

It is quite Magical, especially riding on a horse through the pines.

Before the American Revolution, this forest was already old.

The most famous trail through this cathedral of trees is called the Forest Cathedral Trail — and if that name doesn’t tell you everything, just walk it once. The canopy closes in over you. The air is silent from lack of cell service that is almost impossible to experience today. Your voice gets quieter without you deciding to lower it.

People have called this place enchanted for generations because it feels like the kind of forest that has memory. I experienced this in old fashioned déjà vu the first time we visited in 2021. I could feel the decades before me as we drove past faded signs and a less than loved mini-golf. Of course, the emerald moss everywhere also helps with the whole fairyland vibe.

The Seneca Nation considered these lands sacred. Settlers who moved through in the 1800s wrote about the trees with awe. And in 1927, Anthony Cook — whose family had protected the old-growth timber from logging — donated the land to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The forest was saved by people who felt what you feel when you stand in it.

That’s the history. But the enchantment? That’s harder to put into words.

What I Find Enchanting (A Personal Field Report)

Here’s what I know from living on the edge of it:

You feel smaller here. In the best way. Step outside at night and look up. Dark sky, trees all around you, stars so thick it almost doesn’t look real. There are nights I think — what did I get myself into? Then I look up. The forest quiet in the background. And I already know the answer. Sleep is different here too. People tell me they haven’t slept like that in years. I believe them

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The river doesn’t fight you. The Clarion River is slow and meandering — this isn’t a white-knuckle white-water situation. You get in a canoe, you relax, and you actually look around. The scenery has a chance to land. That’s rarer than it sounds.

The animals show up like they own the place. Because they do. A family of deer at the apple tree. Horses on a farm as you bike past. Nothing says enchantment quite like wildlife going about its business like you’re the guest — which, out here, you are.

Your phone won’t work in parts of the forest. This is a feature. There is a payphone at Old Macbeth’s General Store. A payphone. Something about that takes the hurry right out of you. You can’t be reachable everywhere, so you stop trying. The forest enforces the break you keep saying you need

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Creativity resurfaces. I don’t know if it’s the quiet or the trees or something older than both — but it comes back. My girls making art with leaves and sticks and flowers. Us painting together as a family. Taking pictures of light through hemlocks and realizing you’ve been standing there for twenty minutes. The enchantment isn’t just in the place. It comes back out of you.

So yes, Drew — if you’re reading this — your room is waiting. Pack a flannel and a hat and disappear for a few days. No one will know you’re here. That’s the whole point of this place.

I’m thinking Red Fox. Maybe Blue Jay. You’d know when you walked in.

And I’ll save you an envelope. Some things are better slow.

And when you stand in the Forest Cathedral for the first time and go quiet without meaning to?

It will totally be “magical”

From the forest,

Sara

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Two nights in the forest. No agenda. No itinerary. Just the trees, the river, and all the secrets we’ve been finding & keeping for four summers.

Here’s what we know.

To enter: share this letter with anyone you think might be interested in following the story, visiting, or wanting some snail mail in their life. Then tell us in the comments what you’d do with two full days in the woods with nowhere to be.

We’ll pick a winner on June 1st. Below is a favorite, The Red Fox. Perfect for couples. We have double doubles for friends and families.

→ Enter here — and share this post
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→ Comment: “I’d take @___ to the forest

What We Are Working On This Summer

The Chalet. The former restaurant is becoming something new — a communal indoor gathering space we’re calling The Chalet. Books, boardgames, quiet corners, and room for retreats, small classes, and catered events. The kitchen is still there, and it’s patently waiting for us to work through what it takes to get it relicensed.

But in the meantime, The Chalet will be exactly the kind of place you didn’t know you needed until you walked in. A place to land. To linger. To meet the other people who found their way here.

The story behind the name — and why it fits this place more than we expected — is in the first Snail Mail letter. That one’s for paid members only right to your physical mail box.

Hammock Hollow. Dedicated spots on the property just for lying still and looking up. You’ll know it when you find it.

A walking trail on the property. When five of the acres are still wooded with trees, mushrooms, wildflowers a walking trail is due. Short, quiet, and with always something whimsical to discover along the way. We’ll leave that part as a surprise.

Outdoor ambiance. Twinkle lights at the community firepit. It sounds like a small thing. It isn’t. The simple circle works today, but we just want a little sparkle around it and maybe a guitar or two.

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Small events, late summer into fall. A few intimate gatherings as the season turns. More to come as I get my creative juices flowing.

Five Things to Do If You’re Coming Up

Four summers of paying attention. Here’s what we always tell first-timers.

1. Walk the Forest Cathedral. Three-hundred-year-old white pines and hemlocks. A National Natural Landmark. Walk the Forest Cathedral trail, look up, and let it be quiet. This is the whole reason Cook Forest exists.

2. Get on the Clarion River. Canoe it, kayak it, tube it — it doesn’t matter. The Clarion runs clear and cool and has no agenda. Neither should you. Children as young as two can go in a canoe on low water days, and your dog can join too.

3. Living History Weekend — Memorial Day. Every Memorial Day weekend, Cook Forest comes alive with living historians and reenactors spanning the French & Indian War, the Civil War, WWII, and Pennsylvania’s lumber heritage. The candlelit walk to Seneca Point on Friday night is something you do once and never forget.

4. Come for Fourth of July week. Go to Wolf’s Corners Fair. The biggest little fair in northern Clarion County — over 75 years of tradition. Demo derby, livestock shows, carnival rides, tractor pulls. Funnel cake, corn dogs, fresh squeezed lemonade. Country at its absolute best.

5. The Flying W Ranch Rodeo. If you’ve never been to a rodeo, this is the one to start with. If you have — you already know. We went for the first time last year. Three girls, cowboy boots and pouring down rain, right until the start of the Rodeo. Worth every mud puddle my eight year old jumped in.

Our Secret Local Guide

After four summers of living this — the back roads, the best swimming holes, the weekends worth planning around — we finally wrote it all down.

It’s yours, free.

→ Download our secret local guide here

And if you know someone who might love Cook Forest — a friend who needs a weekend away, someone who collects quiet places, anyone who’d appreciate a good story — please pass this letter along.

One More Thing — The Snail Mail Club

The first mailing is so not almost ready. (I work better under pressure).

If you want something real in your mailbox — a handwritten letter, a rotating artist print, a little piece of Cook Forest to keep — this is for you.

Upgrade by May 15th to be part of the first mailing.

$10 a month. $90 a year. Something IRL — in your mailbox. Skip the corporate latte, the forest will bring you more.

→ Become a paid subscriber

Memorial Day is fast approaching. Fourth of July is moving fast.

The Inn is ready. Forget the 10 hour drive to the beach. Save the commute and discover paradise close to home.

We’ll see you in the forest.

Sara

It wasn’t a business plan. It wasn’t a five-year vision. It was something quieter than that — a pull toward the place that was hard to argue with and harder to explain.

What we didn’t know then, what we couldn’t have known, is that we weren’t just buying a building, or a massive project.

We were buying a front-row seat to people.

There was the great-granddaughter of a Cook family member — one of the families this forest is literally named for — who came back for a reunion. Standing in a place her family had stood generations before. You could see her trying to hold all of it at once.

There were the traveling nurses who stayed for a full month in the White Tail Deer and the Purple Finch. They became part of the rhythm of the place. You stop being guests after a while. You become something closer to neighbors.

There’s Jim. He comes every year to fish and to be quiet. That’s it. That’s the whole plan. Jim knows how to relax.

There was an ATV family that rented several rooms, rolled in with their own outdoor kitchen, produced an entire breakfast from what seemed like thin air, and had every trace of it gone in twenty minutes flat. Experienced campers. We were in awe.

And there have been friends and family we hadn’t seen in years — people who came to see what we’d built, stayed a night or two, and left talking about their own someday. The thing they’d been putting off. The place they’d always meant to go. The little side hustle they want to start.

The forest does that. It gives people permission.

But the one we keep coming back to.

The one that still makes us smile when we tell it.

Two ballerinas. A couple, from Europe, who had come across the ocean on a ship and were making their way across the country toward California — the kind of trip that sounds like a novel and turns out to actually be someone’s life.

They stayed in the Red Fox with their little old dog.

And at some point — I couldn’t tell you exactly how it happened — they ended up outside with Todd, and they showed him some moves. Right there. At the Inn. Two Prima Ballerina’s In Cook Forest, Pennsylvania.

Todd, told me the story, and I am passing it on.

There are no photos of that afternoon. No video of the dancing. No documentation at all.

What we have is the story — and the fire pit, where the best ones always seem to come out. Guests pulling up chairs, talking about what this forest used to look like, what it felt like the first time they came here, what they’re carrying and what they’re setting down. In just two seasons we have established repeat guests and regular visitors.

You can’t post that to Instagram. You can’t caption it.

Some things only travel one way — passed on, old school, through words. Through the telling of it.

A stranger who becomes, briefly, genuinely, a friend. The kind you don’t forget even when you can’t remember their last name.

That’s what we didn’t know we were buying.

And the best part of it.

If any of this sounds like something you need — a room at the Inn, a cabin by the river, a week of being somewhere that asks nothing of you — we’d love to have you.

Experience the Inn

And if you want to stay connected to this place between visits — or you haven’t been yet and you’re still thinking about it — the Snail Mail Club is how we keep the thread going. Letters from the forest. An original art print. Something to hold, something to pass on.

Join Snail Mail Club →

Upgrade to Paid for Snail Mail

Cheers to the forest,

Sara 🌲

And then there are winters that test you.

This was the second kind.

It ended with a final bang in last week with what looked like a booking notification.

It wasn’t a guest. It was a neighbor — texting us through airbnb to say a tree had come down on the roof of the cabin. They did note that they didn’t think it looked damaged.

Christmas break.

Does a healthy tree fall if you are asleep and don’t hear it?

The answer my friends is yes. Another break. The tree that came down at the Inn fell between the garage and the building. Six inches either direction and the story is different story.

Friday the 13th. Valentine’s Day Weekend.

A couple had booked the River Otter for a quiet weekend away.

Instead: a pipe broke. Water moved across 75-year-old pine floors. Todd catching it as it happened because he went to give the WOW factor and heard a “rushing” sound as he put the key into the lock.

Todd saved them. Barely. I Moved the couple to the Owl House.

Problem solved. I Told them they would love the space and the meadow view. Six minutes out from arriving. I am calling them. I said remember when you said it was Friday the 13th…

The Owl’s well had frozen. No water. They wanted a cabin. I just had the inn. So…

So I moved them again — to the Inn — and while I went cabin hunting for them. At 6pm I had found them a cabin. Someone had cancelled another business.

They were happy. They said I handled the situation really well.

We lost $200 for the business that day, but had excelled at customer service in a crisis. It felt like a success.

March was no better. The freeze didn’t lift. No indoor gathering space yet. No events. Just weather and waiting in the particular humility of unfinished things.

But long winters don’t only take.

We have more firewood than we planned for. Todd is getting good with a chainsaw. Maybe we can get him carving!

And Bigfoot Weekend — nearly fully booked.

People are still coming to the forest.

I have never been so glad for the calendar to turn to April.

Both cabins have people coming. Fishing season & the hope of a spring hike attracts the regulars.

We made it through the winter with a little help from God, family & friends.

Spring always brings something new. The Letters from the Forest.

I am super excited to get the first batch of real letters from the forest in mail boxes. I am deciding on paper, envelopes and the special whimsical insert. All things fit together and a long winter can turn into a hopeful spring, including the Artist for the first print.

The Story.

When I was designing the rooms at the Inn, I spent a long time on Etsy looking for the right art. Not prints that looked like cabin art. Something that actually belonged here — in the light, in the wood, in the feeling of this place.

I found her birds.

I didn’t know who she was. I just knew they were right. They went up on the walls and guests noticed them and I never thought much more about it.

Later, I reached out to the artist.

It was Ashley Wolff.

Baby Beluga. Who Took the Cookie from the Cookie Cookie Jar. The books read to pieces in ten thousand childhoods — maybe yours, maybe mine.

Her work had been hanging in the Inn’s rooms all along. Before I knew. Before any of this.

When the idea came for the Snail Mail letters and the art prints, I prayed she’d say yes — because by then I understood it could only be her. It only made sense as her.

She said yes.

I’ve been thinking about what that means.

The world whispers. It has been whispering the whole time — through the room design and the Etsy search and the childhood bookshelf and the prayer.

You just have to be quiet enough to hear it.

That’s easier here.

In the woods, something slows down. The noise that follows you everywhere — it doesn’t follow you as well between the trees. You start to notice things. Connections. The shape of what you’re actually building.

You can come here in your body — book a cabin, sit by the river, let the cold water remind you you’re alive.

Or you can come through the writing. Follow along here, whenever the woods call.

But if you want something to hold — something that came from the heart of this forest —

Come find us in the Snail Mail Club.

A letter from me. And to launch it all, an original print by Ashley Wolff — my first artist, and as it turns out, not a stranger to this place at all. She is even signing a few prints that will be randomly packaged in the letters.

Send Me the First Letter

Something real, from here, to wherever you are.

Free to follow or about the cost of a latte a month for something that stays on your wall.

[We would love to have you →]

Upgrade to Real Snail Mail

Not because I had been there before — I hadn’t.

But something about it felt familiar.

It reminded me of Ocean City, Maryland.

Ocean City has always been one of those places for us. My family’s favorite vacation spot growing up. My husband and I’s favorite place too. In fact, he even spent a couple summers living there when he was younger, driving the boardwalk trains.

As we drove up route 36 for the first time, there were mini-golf courses, signs for go-carts and ice cream. It felt like a tiny rustic version of the main drag of OCMD.

There’s something about certain places that creates an instant connection.

You can’t really explain it.

It just feels right.

And years later, small things still bring it back.

For me it’s rock candy from Candy Kitchen.

One bite and suddenly you’re back on the boardwalk — summer air, salt water, the sound of people walking by.

Places do that.

They leave small markers behind in your life.

Spring in Cook Forest has a way of bringing that feeling back again.

It doesn’t arrive all at once.

It kind of creeps in.

One day the trees still look like winter, the mornings are cold, and the forest has that quiet, waiting feeling.

Then suddenly you notice small things.

A warm sunny day you were desperate for.
A deer spotted hoping for an apple of the tree.
The river current moving fast as the ice has broke.

Something else starts happening this time of year too.

People get creative.

When you spend enough time in the forest, you start noticing things you normally rush past.

Lately I’ve been studying the details around the inn.

Some of the artwork hanging in the rooms. (and what I have left to hang).

Old postcards from Cook Forest in the 40s.

A small note written in my mother’s handwriting that I found tucked inside a drawer while we were cleaning, that told me she was proud.

Handwriting is funny like that. It carries a person with it.

You see it and immediately remember their voice, the way they talk, the way they sign their name.

And it made me start thinking about something else.

When people leave a place like Cook Forest, what stays with them?

Maybe it’s the good canoe ride down the Clarion.

Maybe it’s the way the forest goes completely dark at night.

Maybe it’s sitting outside and realizing you haven’t checked your phone in a few hours. (Progress!)

Most of us leave places with the same kinds of things.

Photos on our phones.

Stories we tell friends.

But every once in a while something physical brings the memory back.

A piece of art.

A handwritten note.

A small souvenir.

Something simple sitting on a desk that reminds you where you’ve been.

Which is probably why I’ve started appreciating those kinds of things again.

Something outside a screen.

That idea is part of what led to Letters from the Forest.

Alongside the essays here in Cook Forest Diaries, paid members will receive seasonal snail mail sent from Cook Forest — stories from the inn and small art prints inspired by the woods.

I’m starting to pick out envelopes and stationery now, and talking with an artist whose work already hangs in a few of the rooms here about creating the first print.

It’s a small project, but it feels like the right kind of thing for a place like this.

Because the funny thing about places like this is that once you’ve spent a little time there, they tend to stay with you.

Just like Ocean City still does for me.

Some readers will follow the story of Cook Forest here online.

A smaller group will start receiving Letters from the Forest — seasonal snail mail sent from the woods.

Something you can hold onto.

— Sara

Letters from the Forest

Paid members receive seasonal snail mail sent from Cook Forest — stories from the inn and small art prints inspired by the woods.

The Beginning

Morning in Cook Forest is quiet.

Not the kind of quiet you get in a suburb when everyone is still asleep. A different kind. The kind where you hear birds before you hear people.

The air smells like pine, grass, sometimes rain. No city smells. Just clean air moving through thousands of trees. The quiet calms the mind. (Sometimes)

The first thing you notice when you arrive is the sky.

It feels bigger here. Clearer. And then you notice the trees. Everywhere. Tall ones, young ones, thick ones, thin ones. In summer they are deep green. In fall they turn into layers of gold, orange, and red.

The winter brings a frozen beauty, and a few downed trees. We’ve been lucky this winter with one falling right between two buildings. Close call.

The river winds through it all, once carrying lumber to build Pittsburgh, then nothing but pollution for many years. Now the Clarion River is one of the very few designated Wild & Scenic across the United States. River Otters, Bald Eagles & Deer can be seen throughout, creating a pure joy that surprises can bring.

Cook Forest has a way of making you remember things you forgot you loved.

Climbing trees. Roasting marshmallows. A game of tag.

It makes you feel a little like a kid again.

The Motel

The first time I saw the motel, it was by accident.

I was driving by and noticed it sitting there in the forest. Cute on the outside. Quiet. A little lonely. At the time it was under contract with someone else, so I didn’t think much about it. I pointed to the land and asked- is that part of the 5 acres.

The answer was no. I drove on.

Three months later, we had bought the four acres of land next too the inn. Found it on Craigslist at midnight. Fate had plans.

The Decision

We were planning a small cabin property tucked in the woods on the land we bought.

In winter, when the leaves dropped, we could see the motel through the trees and started wondering what the new owners were planning to do with it.

Then one day we realized it was back on the market.

We said it wouldn’t hurt to take a look.

The rooms were musty. We joked that they were “if I had to sleep here” rooms. But they were solid. Well laid out. The bones were there.

But it also sat on beautiful acres of land adjustment to ours. Some cleared in a park-like setting, some still wooded. Flat ground surrounded by trees.

The kind of land that makes you start imagining what it could be.. The forest. The land. The potential that had never quite been fulfilled over the past fifty years.

Forty-five minutes later we were completely smitten.

We didn’t tell our family until after we bought it.

What scared us the most wasn’t doing it.

It was not doing it and watching someone else build the dream instead.

The Reality

My mother’s first impression, the property was beautiful, and the building felt like a commune.

My father looked around and said, “I see a lot of potential…and a lot of money.”

The hardest part so far?

Everything breaks. And likes to break on peak weekends.

Everything takes three times longer and three times more money than you expect.

Marketing turned out to be just as important as renovating. It’s been a slow burn. Knowing is one thing. Executing is another.

I haven’t really had a moment of “what did we do?”

It’s been more like, I wish I knew then what I know now.

We bought the property during COVID when travel patterns were different and people were escaping cities. Our planning followed that moment in time. Since then the market has shifted, and we are learning to adapt.

But that’s part of building something from scratch. You don’t know until your knee deep in and the only way to the other side is to keep going.

The Moments That Make It Worth It

Some guests come once and disappear back into their lives.

Others keep returning.

We’ve had several guests in only a few seasons of operations that keep returning. Five star reviews and referrals. That tells us we are heading in the right direction.

One couple discovered the property and fell so in love with it that they decided to get married here this October.

That’s exactly what we hoped would happen.

People reconnecting. Slowing down. Finding something in nature again.

Some of my favorite moments are simpler.

Watching my kids run around outside. Climbing trees and then yelling for help to get down.

And the “water feature” pond. My husband’s pet project. The frogs came, dozens of them. Screens have been abandoned for hours because of the frogs.

Why Cook Forest Diaries Exists

I originally started Cook Forest Diaries as exactly that — a diary.

Just recording what was happening. (It lasted a few posts before life took over)

But a diary isn’t very interesting to read if you’re not the one writing it.

Then I realized something.

Cook Forest itself has nearly a hundred years of history. It’s Pennsylvania’s first state park. The stories here are bigger than a renovation project.

The journey: Humbling, scary, stressful & full of what life is meant to be.

We’ve learned new skills. Met people we never would have crossed paths with otherwise. Friends we hadn’t seen in years have came to visit and reconnect.

Before we even opened, we hosted our first Easter with family here and tested the rooms.

When we bought the inn we hoped three things would happen:

We would build something tangible and real.
We would meet people we never would have met otherwise.
And we would see our friends and family more often.

All three have already come true.

For My Creative Soul: Snail Mail From the Forest

I’ve always loved writing & receiving letters.

I write poetry sometimes. I curated the artwork for the rooms. Our whole family draws & paints and creates.

At some point I started thinking about how disconnected everyone feels now. Everything lives on screens. Notifications. Feeds. Endless scrolling.

But people still love getting real mail. Addressed to them. A card, a letter, a little care package.

I still keep every letter ever sent to me. My family, friends, and past boyfriends.

So I had an idea.

What if every few months you received something in the mail from the forest?

A letter.
A piece of art.
A story.
Maybe a few surprises along the way.

A little reminder of a physical place that still exists.

Because Cook Forest isn’t just a location.

It’s a feeling.

What Comes Next

Cook Forest Diaries will share the full story of bringing a vacant inn back to life.

The fun parts and the frustrating parts.

The history of Cook Forest itself.
Stories about guests.
The reality of standing up a business from nothing but a dream.

And sometimes the surprising thing that happens here is what people take with them when they leave.

More than once we’ve had guests visit, spend a few days in the forest, and go home inspired to change something in their lives.

Start something new.
Reconnect with something old.
Remember who they were before life got busy.

Maybe the forest has something to do with that.

If you’re curious about the journey, you’re in the right place.

If you’d like to follow the journey — the forest, the renovation, the stories, and Snail Mail from the Forest beginning in June — you can subscribe below.

Welcome to Cook Forest Diaries.

Sara

The Cook Forest Diaries

Real-time notes from a 1975 forest motel in motion.

🛎️ Guest Notes

A great grandaugher or something like of the founding Cook of Cook’s Forest is staying at the inn. A reunion is happening and we are glad she choose to stay with us.

A couple bikers rode in on their motorcyles looking for a quick night’s rest. We were happy to oblige with an avaiable room. We have found we are a motel for all ages, backgrounds and reasons to crash. Just passing through or staying for a week to explore all the forest trails and waters.

🧱 What’s Working

We continue to get strong review from our guests. However with the rebrand google is being fussy. Working on all the name changes across the platforms to cross all the Is and Ts. I’d rather be in a hammock.

🪞 What’s Not Working

We are still a hidden spot. So this week’s focus is about getting the word out and aligning with the right partners in the forest and PRing around our hometown Pittsburgh as a great spot to visit.

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🔁 This Week’s Loop

It was a rough week recovering from a forced 4th of July shut-down. Its like toy stores closing the week before Christmas. But onward we go and the weather has been happy to stay nice enought to drive last minute bookings.

🪵 Forest Moment

I went up to to the roof (flat) and sat on a Kantha and let the sun hit my face. There is nothing more majestic than the sun, the air and the trees, even for a few moments.

These moments are why we are here. We want everyone to remember there is a place beyond the screen.

💭 Final Thought

Even though the list is long, process is made daily. I am grateful and am working on my patience.

Motel Girl

Sara

The Cook Forest Diaries

Real-time notes from a 1975 forest motel in motion.

🛎️ Guest Notes

July 1st. A 2nd timer shows up for the 4th. I drop a thank you forest card off prior to arrival with a VIP discount. Feeling good about the weekend. We are booked across most rooms and will pick up the last minute crowd over the next couple days.

July 3rd. 4:30pm. I go to wash my hands…. no water. hmm. Go into Kitchen. no water. Go outside and into a motel room..no water. Walk down stairs to where are cost of a new car walter filtration system that is a couple years new is beeping.

Call the company that installed and services… Unplug it and disconnect the wire, replug in. No dice. Try again. No dice. I send a video.

Looks like your Lamp won’t ignite. That means no water until its replaced. That is a size X and we don’t carry that in stock. I will order one now.

So I am out of water until this part comes in. Wednedsay. Me- is there anywhere I can drive to get the part tonight. No. It isn’t local.

So I am out of water for July 4th business. There is no work-around. In-Sync was singing bye bye bye to all our customers….

Oh. This lamp burns out after x amount of time. Some people have one they on the shelf. Yes. If I had know that there was this part then yes. I woud have that buffer stock. Lesson learned.

🧱 What’s Working

Not the water. However, Todd did a great job of calling all the customers and all took it well and were able to divert to anthoer logding. Refunds were given and we will follow-up with a special deal for their return as an apology.

Now we have 3 days of Sun and no guests, except at the River Otter Cottage, so we are going to try and have some fun. Pool, Fair, maybe we can get a small project down. Bottle water and pool showers here we come.

🪞 What’s Not Working

The Water…… and We have a lot more marketing to do and the physical upkeep & continued renovations are absorbing a lot of energy. Need to figure out some delgation and edits to spend more time marketing for the inn and all the activity that requires.

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🔁 This Week’s Loop

For losing 5 days of business, having to dissapoint customers, I am taking it better than I thought I was going to. Maybe I am in shock. Of all the days of the year…

My first reaction was a large sigh. I wanted to take my ball and go home. Then I thought, it’s a sign to have some fun, enjoy the sun and use it as fuel to take a stinky situation and use it to put a positive fire in the belly.

Plus Todd gave blood this afternoon and somewhere that will help someone in need. His element is with the customers and taking care of them.

🪵 Forest Moment

Scarlett caught the smallest frog I ever saw in the pond, it was the size of two little erasers. Then she did a puppet show with a puppet on each hand and one on each foot. That small bit of nature & creativity is what the forest is all about.

That is what we are bring people here.

💭 Final Thought

Sometimes when god gives you a dry well, you thank him for bottled water and a YMCA you can shower at.

Hitting the Sack,

Sara

The Cook Forest Diaries

Thanks for reading! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

Real-time notes from a 1975 forest motel in motion.

🛎️ Guest Notes

Should I say- No Show Guest Notes: Booking.com is a platform that needs active management of bookings through arrival. 2 Guests this months No Showed and since we did not have their credit card, we are out. Lesson learned on Booking.com. When they come in double check and call to confirm, get the deposit.

🧱 What’s Working

Guest really like the rooms and the grounds. We just need more of them. Which means more marketing.

🪞 What’s Not Working

Marketing: It’s not enough.

First Fix:

Warm leads every friend family and group we have ever belonged to, along with audiences of friends and family.

What: An Offer (thank you Alex Hormozi) that people would feel stupid to say no for. (working on it).

🔁 This Week’s Loop

Top 3 Priorities:

• Warm Leads for Fast Booking/With Offer

• New Website to beginng building SEO

• Max out Grounds Enjoyment at the best cost

🪵 Forest Moment

A picture speaks 1000 words. From the land looking up at the blue sky. Trying to remember this is all just a glimpse.

Over and Out,

Sara

The Cook Forest Diaries

Real-time notes from a 1975 forest motel in motion.

🛎️ Guest Notes

I didn’t get to meet the Ballerina couple. They emailed us a while back for a better rate. Coming from Europe on the Queen Mary with an old dog. Traveling from NYC to California, and our little motel was a stop along the way. They had been in Europe for 10 years and were showing Todd some moves and showing him a bit of their dancing life. So cool. And yes, we gave them the discount they needed to fit into the budget. When you are trying to build something you need heads and beds. that get you feedback and sometime fun guest stories to go with it!

🧱 What’s Working

We have our first Three-peat guest staying this upcoming weekend. Nothing feels better than a guest that comes back. We have a few second-timers also. It’s a signal we are doing something right.

🪞 What’s Not Working

We got distracted with some shiny objects that long term are great but took resources, time and attention away from the main bag.. the motel. We are suckers for sweet locations and the last 3 years we picked up a 1950s rustic river cabin and a larger cabin on the state game lands. The Owl House (on the game-lands) needed more work than met the eye. It’s in shouting distance of being added to the forest experience. Back to the motel we go.

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🔁 This Week’s Loop

Working to prioritize everything that needs done. The Rebrand back to Cook Forest Inn is #1 with generating more awareness. Shoeless Joe was wrong. Build it and they will come…Not if they don’t know about it! Our forest of dreams needs some advertising blitz. Biggest lesson learned. And I wanted to be Angela Bower when I grew up. I’ll talk about what we are doing there in another post. This a record for myself when my brain is full on fog, if it also brings some awareness that’s a bonus.

🪵 Forest Moment

Through face time my kids and husband were walking the Owl House. through the phone I saw a deer through the window. Pretty Cool. You can’t get that feeling anywhere but nature.

💭 Final Thought

I keep telling myself. just keep going. move it forward.

From Pittsburgh (cause I have a day job) heading back to the forest tomorrow night.

Over and Out,

Sara

This is the diary of me, a woman who with her husband & littles landed in Cook Forest, PA, one weekend. A place we had never heard of five years ago. We ended up buying an abandoned motel and 9 acres just a year after our first visit to the magical forest. There was nothing in our life plan where this was a destination. Day by Day we are learning, it’s more journey than desitation.

Thanks for reading! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

Expecations for the reader:

These are entries, a bit of history for the experience I am having. While I have managed to keep many of my physical journals over the years, I struggle to keep one solid journal about anything specific. So I’m going public. No AI help on these entries, expect spelling and grammar errors and maybe a bit of humor, hope and lessons. Who knows. If your reading, you tell me.

June 20, 2025.

Friday. The sun was finally out today after so much rain the river was 10+ feet high. The ground is soggy but green.

It was a long week as I spent 2 days in Pittsburgh working, grabbing stuff we forgot for the summer and knowing we would be back in forth. Had some Californians stop over for a night with their pups and a couple of folks on their anniversary. We have a weeklong repeat guest, and we seem to be a nice spot for single that just want sometime away in the woods.

Today I pitched a story to a Pittsbugh newletter for Cook Forest and the Revival of the Inn, along with pitching a “Wellness Tasting Event” for a Clarion county fall travel effort. Posted a few Pics to Social and learning Opius Clip for Video Editing.

This weekend starts picking some fun activities for the list for the family to do so its not all work and the girls get to do neat forest things. I’d like to hit the drive in this summer (we haven’t been there yet) and do some more horseback riding.

Must hit the real Grocery Store for some cookable food that doesn’t feel like a processed mess. Meal planning hear I come- I will be using AI for that.

peace out, Sara

This is the diary of me, a woman who with her husband & littles landed in Cook Forest, PA, one weekend. A place we had never heard of five years ago. We ended up buying an abandoned motel and 9 acres just a year after our first visit to the magical forest. There was nothing in our life plan where this was a destination. Day by Day we are learning, it’s more journey than desitation.

Expecations for the reader:

These are entries, a bit of history for the experience I am having. While I have managed to keep many of my physical journals over the years, I struggle to keep one solid journal about anything specific. So I’m going public. No AI help on these entries, expect spelling and grammar errors and maybe a bit of humor, hope and lessons. Who knows. If your reading, you tell me.

June 18, 2025

Wednesday. Writing from Pittsburgh, came home to work my career job for a couple days, collect some things left behind for the summer and restart my engine & soul for summer.

The first week up in the forest was rough. The rain keeps coming, after a brutal winter. The HVAC went, along with getting the restaurant space redone. We have returning vistors which is a great honor and makes me feel like we are doing something right.

We went back to the original name from 1975 and already feel like that was a good decision. The Cook Forest Inn, Modern Motel. We even were calling it the Cook Forest Inn. Its funny when I tell the women that knew us for a lone season as “Sweet Forest Breeze” They go… aw I thought that was lovely.

It still is. But sometimes, you know it isn’t right. Maybe a good line on a T-Shirt. But it just wasn’t vibing with what we are or the mood of the building itself. So If you want to see what I’m writing about check us out @cookforestinn. See you later. Sara