Erie to Erie

Presque Isle State Park

As we were choosing where we wanted to go along the Northern border of the US, I naturally wanted to go to Erie, PA because we are from Erie, CO. On our way there, we got to head to Niagara Falls and visit with my cousin who I haven't seen in years! He welcomed us to Buffalo and we headed out to a cool brewery that seemed to be THE place to be!

Wet!

Wet!

Wet!

We stayed in Four Mile Creek State Park right on the shores of Lake Ontario (first Great Lake!). We pulled in at night and the the camping spaces are so big that when we woke in the morning we found we had accidentally parked on our neighbors yard...oops!  A quick fix and we were all drinking our morning coffee again! Visiting Niagara falls was wet, and even though we did not pay to go stand in the spray, we were drenched! The rain would not stop, but somehow it seemed appropriate to witness the Niagara filling even more, in live time.





















Presque Isle State Park is located in Erie and they have a neat naturalist program where they give free sunset pontoon rides to show off the different areas of the park. We took them up on that and all got to experience a gorgeous sunset while watching beavers prepare for the evening, turtles catch their last rays for the day and many birds find their supper before heading home and singing to one another from their nests.

There is a fun indoor water park that I took the boys to, Splash Lagoon, and before we went I dropped in on a cool chocolate factory, Romolo Chocolates, a friend had recommended. "Mama! Why are you being so nice to us and taking us to all these great places?!" Oliver wanted to know. I'll go ahead and take that as a compliment and hope that he is just forgetting that most days I'm taking him to really great places...

The Aqua Tumbler!

At least they are smiling...

We stayed at Lampe Marina, so we were right on the water (Lake Erie! Second Great Lake!) which is always great. It was a tiny little campground and will always be remembered as the campground where we realized something was wrong with the galley tank on our RV. Austin and Chris spent hours under the camper cutting away the underbelly in the rain to figure out what was going on. Oli and I helped by staying out of the way and playing Monopoly. Due to this, our trip was cut a little short in PA because we brought the camper in to be fixed at a shop which would have been great had they ordered the correct tank. Unfortunately they hadn't, so with our camper still hooked to the truck and Chris needing to work, we dubbed the day a "take your kids to work day" and all hung out at Starbucks All Day Long. There are worse things than being trapped in a coffee shop with reliable Internet, but I think we were all glad to be out by the end of the day!