Day 4 - Thursday, May 14, 2009

Sarah's writing in white.

Jason's writing in orange.

First…Happy Birthday to Susan (Mumzie / Granny) and to Brent!!!!!!

We decided the night before that we were going to try to get an early start and our goal was to leave by 8am. We were on schedule and were leaving the hotel room to bring our stuff out to the truck and we noticed the back right tire of the truck was completely flat!!!

Yikes….there went our schedule to leave early!!!! So, not only was the tire flat….about 5 minutes later it started to down pour. So, we were left trying to change the tire and pack the truck in the pouring rain… (I love how Sarah says "we" when describing the changing of the truck tire!) with Jackson and Lincoln…..just wonderful!!! Luckily there was a covered porch adjacent to the parking lot that we pulled the truck under to get out of the rain. Jason changed the tire while I tried to occupy Jackson and help reorganize the truck. Jackson and I went back up to the room to double check that we got everything. While we were in there this guy all of the sudden came in our room….scared the crap out of me. He was obviously still drunk from the night before. Turns out he thought he was in his own room and asked me if I had fixed his TV yet??? I was thinking….”what??? Are you crazy? Do you seriously think I work here…not to mention…working with a child in my arms???” Thank goodness….he meant no harm and he turned around and went into his real room….2 doors down. Anyway, I quickly left and went back down to the truck with Jason and Lincoln. Jason had now finished changing the tire and we were almost ready to get moving….finally. Just then, that drunkard came outside and came up to us again. Now he thought Jason was his father because they had the same truck and Jason was wearing a t-shirt that had Aubie (Auburn’s Tiger mascot) on it and asked Jason if it was the Lion King?? Man this guy just needed to go to bed and sober up or maybe he was just plan CRAZY and not really drunk at all….who knows. Anyway, we finally left around 10am after getting a fishing license and continued west on route 6 (scenic drive) toward the Allegheny National Forest. Since we only had a spare tire we, rather, I decided we needed to go to a Chevy dealership to have them either put a real tire on since we were clear across the state and still had many more miles to go. Jason wasn’t very happy about it (Sarah was freaking out) but we did end up finding a dealership in Warren which actually was not too far out of the way and they were able to fix the flat in the tire (so we didn’t have to buy a new one….thank goodness) and they changed the oil too. It took about 1 ½ hours which wasn’t too bad. We made sandwiches and ate lunch in the waiting room.

Now that we had 4 good tires again, we continued our trek and drove south to Hearts Content Scenic Area in the Allegheny Nat’l Forest. It was gorgeous there. There were trails through the beautiful forests and no one else was there so we let Lincoln run free and off the leash through the trail. He was so good. The day started out, as I said…pouring rain, but now the sun had come out and the temperature dropped a little and became much less humid and it turned out to be a very pretty day. I loved this National Forest. This forest was so different from anything I'd hiked through before. It is an old-growth forest dminated by Hemlocks, White Pines, and beech trees - all northern species. They were all huge, tall, and straight. It must be pretty wet here, too, because there was thick green moss everywhere. The picture at the top of the blog page was taken there. Again, you could really tell how much farther behind spring was compared to where our house is in southeastern PA. I'd really like to come back here and spend more time. I only hiked here for about an hour or so before we had to move on.

After Hearts Content Scenic Area we drove just a few miles southwest to Tidioute Lookout which was just on the outskirts of the Allegheny Nat’l Forest and was on the scenic road we were driving down (route 62). We both agreed that while there parks are really pretty now, we would also like to see them in the fall with all of the leaves changing colors. One of the things Sarah and I noticed were all of the porcupines dead along the road. We've never seen wild porcupine - dead or otherwise. Apparently they are common this far north and west in PA. I really wanted to see one alove, but this is the best we could do. Poor little guy. These critters have more than 30,000 quills!
Our next destination was Titusville, PA. We were planning to see the Drake's Well Museum and go to Oil Creek State Park there, however by the time we would have arrived in Titusville it would have been too late in the day and wouldn't be able to spend as much time as we would like. So…we decide to keep driving northwest all the way up to Erie, PA and then head back to Titusville since it would be on our way back down south anyway. So off we went…up to Erie. We really just wanted to go to Erie since it is a well known city and since it IS on a Great Lake. Neither one of us really had any great expectation of Erie. We arrived around 5pm (since we're so far north, it stays light really late here) and drove straight to Presque Isle State Park which was right on Lake Erie.

This state park was a very nice surprise - it was a beautiful place with lots of big cottonwood trees on a narrow peninsula sticking out into Lake Erie with the city just across the bay. Plus, the park has some history. 1st, we stopped to get Jackson some dinner at a little picnic ground beside the water.

Then we kept driving to the end of the peninsula. There were tons of people everywhere - running, walking, riding bikes, etc., though I never felt like it was overcrowded - just people enjoying the gorgeous weather at the end of the day. At the far end of the loop there is a monument and interprtive area discussing the history of the site. This peninsula played a very important part in the naval history in the War of 1812. This is the site where Oliver Hazard Perry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Hazard_Perry), commander of U.S> naval forces on Lake Erie, soundly defeated the British navy here in the Battle of Lake Erie. He is called the "Hero of Lake Erie". Unfortunately, I don't remember much more than that, which is a shame because it was really interesting . . . old age, I guess.

We kept driving as the sun was getting lower and we found a beach. I had been to a great lake when I was little living in Chicago, but I don't remember it. Even though we pretty much new what to expect, Sarah and I was both surprised at just how much like an ocean it is - wide sandy beaches, nothing but water on the horizon, small waves, etc. The Great Lakes even have small tides, and I swear I could detect a slight beachy smell.

We wanted to give Jackson his 1st dip in a great lake, so . . .

Yes, it was cold!

Jackson and I sat on some rocks forming a jetty, and he was mesperized by the waves breaking on the rocks. He could have sat there with me for hours.

After the rocks we let Jackson play in the sand for the 1st time - his 1st beach experience. It was a fulltime job keepinghim from eating the sand.

The last stop in the park was to the lighthouse to wach the sun set. A beautiful old lighthouse built in the middle 1800's. After the park, we drove around trying to find camping in or around Erie, but there is NONE! So, we thought we'd just drive around Erie for a little while, then try to find a motel on the way back toward Titusville. We liked Erie. A nice downtown, nice stuff on the waterfront. Nice town. On the way out we tried to find something different but easy and fast for dinner because it was getting late, especially for Jackson. We went to a sports restaurant that was pretty cool but we made a big mistake - we ordered an appetizer sampler platter without realy looking at what comes on it. There were 5 or 6 things on there and every one of them was deep fried and really greesy. I felt pretty nasty walking out of there.

We thought finding a motel for the night would be easy because for the entire journey on Route 6 so far we had seen tons of mom and pop motels. Now, of course, there wasn't a sinlge one on the way back to Titusville. It was about 11pm by the time we got to Titusville, which is big enough to have several motels. We used the GPS to try to find one of those "mom and pop" places, but twice it lead us to non-existent or closed down places. So, we said screw it, we'll just go to the Motel 6 we passed 4 times. We snuck Lincoln in again. We were a little annoyed that we lost a gorgeous night for camping, but all in all, it was a great and full day.