Upstate New York

 

With only two days left of our five month journey we did everything we could to pack them in with activities in Upstate New York.  As we headed to the finger lakes area, we made a couple of stops.  Our first stop was in Palmyra, New York where we learned more about church history.  We went to the Sacred Grove, Hill Cumorah and the Grandin Building.  We really enjoyed the tours we had at each location.  

The next stop was at the Women's Rights National Historic Site in Seneca Falls, New York.  The ranger talk and the museum were really well done here and it was definitely worth spending a couple of hours.

  And it was the last Junior Ranger badge of the trip.  It seems like a great one to end on for my three girls.  

And then we finished our drive to our last campsite, Watkins Glen State Park.  We enjoyed a relaxing evening at the beautiful park.  The campground is really nice, with lots of space.  We took a more vacation approach to the evening and had a fire and cooked tinfoil dinners.  The girls got out their hammocks and we enjoyed a peaceful evening.  

We started early the next morning because we wanted to hike the Gorge Trail before it got crowded.  This hike quickly made it into our top ten list of hikes.  It was amazing every step.  The gorge is gorgeous!  There are so many waterfalls and pools along the path.  I had no idea New York had such an amazing area.  Seriously, come and see this gorge.  

We loved our morning hike! but we were not done hiking.  We went to two additional state parks to enjoy more waterfalls and gorges in the finger lakes areas.  We did the hike at Taughannock Falls and the gorge hike at Buttermilk Falls.  They were both fantastic.  Buttermilk Falls started out tough with lots of stairs and it was unclear if the hard work was going to pay off and then all the sudden you are in an amazing gorge and it all seems worth it.  It was so pretty, we loved it.  

The girls waded in some of the pools and walked behind another waterfall.

But after three hikes in the sun, we were ready for something else.  Even though we were sweaty and kind of gross, we went to the Corning Glass Museum.  It was way more fun than we thought it would be.  They had lots of demonstrations about glass blowing and torching and about glass breaking.  We enjoyed all the demonstrations.  We were impressed with some of the art and we (mostly me) enjoyed the history portion.  Thankfully the museum was open until 7:00 because we ended up spending way more time here than we thought we would.  

The chess set was our favorite art piece.  The girls enjoyed some of the scavenger hunts the museum had.  They got lollypops for finding this sun.  

And since it was our last night, Hector and the girls decided we needed to eat out.  There is a huge Polish community in central New York, so we found an authentic pierogi restaurant and it turned out to be the perfect spot for us.  The girls all enjoyed the pierogis and we loved talking with the people working there and hearing about their lives.  Our waiter recommended an ice cream place and how could I say no on our last night.  Again, way to much ice cream for us to eat, but we enjoyed it.  Not as good as some of the other places we have been though.  

It was a full day of fun.  It felt right to do lots of hiking on our last day; that has been such a big part of our trip and the hikes were great ones to end on.  We went out with a bang.  

We packed up in the morning and now we are driving home.  We are now back in familiar territory, almost to our house in Virginia.  It is weird to be back driving on the roads we have been on thousands of times.  On to the next life adventure.  

Niagara Falls

 

It was so late by the time we pulled into our New York campsite.  We do not normally get in after dark, but this was an exception.  We were right on Lake Ontario at Four Mile Creek State Park.  We had a big site with lots of room and great views.  

Our main reason for being here was to see Niagara Falls.  We have seen lots of waterfalls by this point in our trip so the girls were not expecting to be wowed.  They were wrong though.  Niagara Falls totally has the wow factor and we were all impressed.  We took the Maid of the Mist boat ride and that made the Falls even more impressive.  You really get a sense of how powerful the water is.  There was so much mist from the falls and then as you get close to them while on the boat it gets so windy and crazy; it just feels like water is blowing everywhere; we loved it!  

We did some walking around the park and saw the falls from several different view points.  We also enjoyed learning about some of the stories of people who have gone over the falls.  After seeing Niagara Falls it is hard to imagine how anyone could survive going over, but they have.  

We did a little more exploring of the Niagara River before returning to camp.  We stopped at the Whirlpool for a picnic and views of the largest natural whirlpool in the western hemisphere.  It was cool and we learned about some people who tried to swim across it.  They did not make it past the class 6 rapids.  It's good to try new things, but there is nothing wrong with us knowing our limitations as well.  Not everything needs to be conquered.  

But we still had one more challenge to conquer.  We had one more great lake to get into, Lake Ontario.  Unfortunately, the weather got chillier in the afternoon and even sprinkled rain a little while the sun hide behind the clouds.  We were not super excited about swimming, but this was our only opportunity to swim in Lake Ontario, the last of the five Great Lakes.  Our campground, while right on the lake, did not allow swimming so we headed to a spot a few minutes away that the campground host told us about.  We got there and our first impression was that the host must have been crazy to suggest we swim here.  There were waves crashing into old piles of cement blocks, but then we noticed a second entrance to the beach that had a nice rocky coastline and a shallow entrance to the lake.  Since it was overcast, we figured this would be a quick stop, just to wade in, finish our Great Lake Challenge and then head back to camp.  Estelle and Natalia didn't even put their swimsuits on, but the water ended up being pretty warm and there was this log on the beach that the girls pushed into the water that ended up entertaining them for a log time. 

 They all swam and played on the floating log until we were all too hungry to stay any longer.  It turned into a really fun activity.  And while Sienna is the only one of us that officially swam in all five great lakes (defined by getting her whole body and head under water), we all entered each of the five Great Lakes at least up to our knees.  

Our last night on the Great Lakes was spent sitting out on the lawn watching the sunset (and Estelle doing cartwheels) while eating popcorn.  We have really loved our sunsets on the lakes; it is something special that needs to be seen in person.