Stops #41 to #45 – Jess

*To all of our lovely readers – we have been having technical difficulties with the new Word Press platform.  Tony updated the last post to try and clean it up.  If you were having trouble reading it, you should be able to revisit and enjoy now.  Oh, and happy belated turkey day, I hope you stuffed yourself.  Bahahahah.*

As we left Kelley’s Island we found a great farm stand to pick up some apples and pickles and then made our way to Elyria, Ohio for some seriously delicious pizza.  With full stomachs we could finally focus on the task at hand:  jumping into Lake Erie, oh, and finding somewhere to sleep.

One of our trip goals was to jump into all five of the Great Lakes.  More specifically, you had to be fully submerged for it to count.  We clearly came up with this goal in the summer.  Not so much fun at the beginning of fall!  As we made our way from Ohio through Pennsylvania to New York, the last two lakes were haunting us.  Aside from the fact that we had cooler weather to get used to, we were constantly being pummeled with rain.  Jumping into Lake Erie and Lake Ontario is going to put the burrrrr in October!

We scouted some Pennsylvania options for camping along the coast but nothing looked very attractive.  We made our way into New York and found Lake Erie State Park.  With a beach and a nice isolated camp site, we found home for the next couple days.  We opted to coordinate showers with our Lake Erie dip.  We biked to the beach with Bee, stripped down to our suits, and sprinted into the lake.  With a bemused older couple keeping their eye on us, we both dunked ourselves into the lake – which may have been warmer than the air – it’s hard to say.  The water was rough, the couple was laughing, we were laughing, we sprinted back out.  Kindly, the couple offered to take a photo in case we needed documentation, but there was no getting us back in there.  We made our way to the showers for a much needed warm up.

You can just barely see the tent from the main camp.

Yes…that beach.

After a couple days of hiding from rain, we continued to Niagara Falls.  While one of our more touristy and common stops, neither Tony or I had been there and it was stunning.

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We made our way to our next New York State Park:  Four Mile Creek SP.  This is when we figured out that New York State Parks are on their game, man.  All the campgrounds are well kept, they have clean bathrooms, and they check your pet’s rabies vaccine information consistently.  If you are not a big camper and want to start… start here.  Furthermore, thanks to the rain and time of year, most sites were uninhabited.  By now we were solidly in forty degree weather and rain was constantly falling.  We had to get this over with.  We were heading inland next and this was our last opportunity to get into Lake Ontario.  Lake Ontario was very similar to that of Erie except it was colder and rougher – making the immediate shower all the more heavenly.  We stopped at a Dick’s sporting goods in Rochester to get some waterproofing spray for the tent and drove to Letchworth State Park – aka, the Grand Canyon of the East.

Letchworth is breathtaking and unexpected.  A colleague of mine recommended it and I’m so happy we were able to check it out.  There is a dam and plenty of my favorite rock… shale.  I know, shale seems like a dull choice, but I love its texture.  Tony and I got pretty nerdy here.

But even if you aren’t complete dorks like us, Letchworth is still worth a visit.  I think I’ve been married to Tony for too long.

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And then unexpected wine country, yay!  The finger lakes region of New York is known for their dry Riesling.  Here was my thought process:

#1)  I thought Riesling only came in sweet…gross.

#2  I never thought of New York as wine country.

#3  Well shit, I guess I’m going to get my drink on.

I do highly recommend you avoid their reds – stick with what they are good at.  We camped at Keuka Lake State Park by night and drove to multiple wineries by day.

During our wine tour we got lucky by talking to some locals that highly recommended we hike Watkins Glen.  The first day we tried, we got a few inches of rain, so instead we opted out, found a brewery and camped out there while working on the blog.  The next day, it was on.  Unfortunately we couldn’t go all the way into the gorge with the pup, but we still got some nice views.

I hope you guys don’t get vertigo.

From Watkins Glenn we drove to Ithaca and found a nice little park to bike in.

While Ithaca was really cool, it was packed with people and tons of road construction.  We got out of there pretty quickly and made our way to the next camp, at Fillmore Glen State Park, named after our lucky #13 president, Millard Fillmore.  They even have a replica of the cabin he grew up in on the premises.  Thrilling.

Sarcasm aside, Fillmore Glen is up there as one of my favorite stops.  In addition to the gorgeous views and great hiking trails, I found more shale.  Then we got caught in a huge downpour.  This just added to the excitement and beauty of the whole event.  The three of us were sprinting out of the gorge through the woods and over bridges.  We had a blast!

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Damn New York… we are impressed.