Trip to NY Part 5

The last part of our trip was spent in Rochester. We visited with some friends of mine that I hadn't seen in years, as well as my piano teacher from Eastman, and I showed Jon a few of the places where I used to go with my parents, including Hamlin Beach, the Erie Canal, and Ontario Beach Park.

Rochester

Trip to NY Part 4

After Letchworth and the pageant, we were off to Niagara Falls. We drove first to a town called Niagara on the Lake, where we rode the Whirlpool Jet Boat. The boat is specifically designed to go fast and crash through rapids (Class 5), getting you completely soaked. The Travel Channel filmed our run, which was cool. After the jet boat we ate lunch at The Buttery, a tavern in Niagara on the Lake that has delicious brie and jalapeno jelly.

While in Niagara Falls, we did the White Water Walk, which takes you down by the Niagara River to view its Class 6 rapids; Journey Behind the Falls, which allows you to get close to and behind a portion of the Canadian Horseshoe Falls; the Cave of the Winds tour, which has the "Hurricane Deck" that gets you to within 20 feet of the American Falls; and, of course, we visited Clifton Hill. We played mini-golf, toured Movieland Wax Museum (and it's "Nothing-To-Do-With-A-Wax-Museum" mini-haunted house section), rode the ferris wheel that was supposed to give us a good view of the falls (we rode it too late and only got to see pitch-black where the falls were located), played around in an arcade, and rode a motion simulator. All-in-all, we were successful by nights end at reverting back to ten year-olds. But it was a lot of fun.

Niagara Falls

Trip to NY Part 3

After our couple of days at the Finger Lakes, we traveled to Letchworth State Park, the "Grand Canyon of the East." We spent a few hours at Letchworth, then headed to Palmyra to watch the Hill Cumorah Pageant, which is presented by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Despite it raining and protesters telling us we were going to go to Hell, it was an enjoyable evening.

Letchworth State Park

Trip to NY Part 2

After our night in Pennsylvania, we drove up to the Finger Lakes area in New York, taking Route 15, which follows along the Susquehanna River. We camped for two nights in Watkins Glen State Park, located at Seneca Lake. We spent about half a day going through Watkins Glen, then drove around Seneca and Cayuga Lakes, and stopped in Ithaca before going back to our campsite.

Finger Lakes & Watkins Glen

Trip to NY Part 1

Jon and I took a much needed week-long vacation and traveled to western NY. For our first day of the trip we stopped at Gettysburg National Park, and stayed the night at a bed and breakfast called The Pheasant Field Inn in Carlisle, PA. The main house of the bed and breakfast is around 200 years old and was a stop on the underground railroad. It is located in a beautiful area close to the national forest, and the owners serve a superb (and very fresh) breakfast.

Gettysburg + Bed & Breakfast

Manassas National Battlefield

We didn't go to downtown DC for the Fourth of July fireworks this year. It's too bad everyone who did go down got dumped on with rain and evacuated from the Mall area because of a tornado warning. At least the storm moved through early enough in the day to not cancel the fireworks.

We did go to Manassas National Battlefield in Virginia for the day, though. It was cloudy all day (not the best light for taking pictures) and really humid, but it was fun. We did the First Manassas Trail, which is a five mile loop that covers the first battle at Manassas. We spent most of the day at the battlefield, then went home.

Manassas National Battlefield