NorthEast Trip: Day 32-37: Anne of Green Gables and the Stubborn French Quebecers

It's hard to believe we are in the final part of our adventures for the summer. Time FLEW by and Paul and I had an enjoyable time together as we travelled throughout this part of the world. 

I'm honestly not quite ready to go back to real life, but I am still excited for: my bed, my shower, and eating normal meals again (even though we've been eating healthy, it's not quite as easy to eat like we are accustomed to without a full kitchen to work with).

This part of our trip was a mix of long days of driving with random activities to break up the drudgery of being in the car to too long as well as a few last cool things on our bucket list.

Day 32: Entering Prince Edward Island!

We had a six hour drive to Prince Edward Island today. It was sad leaving behind Nova Scotia and we didn't even get to do a proper farewell (I'm a sappy romantic) because the border between NS and New Brunswick popped up quite suddenly.

From New Brunswick, we drove across a HUGE and scary bridge over the ocean to get to Prince Edward Island. 

All of the research that I did on Prince Edward Island seemed to indicate that it was a pretty boring place with "nice beaches", so I was shocked to find that I absolutely LOVED it here. I wish we had added another day or two on our adventures so we could explore PEI more thoroughly.

PEI reminded me of West Michigan during my childhood (aka before West Michigan became a land of suburbs and more suburbs): rolling hills of farmland, dirt roads, and healthy patches of forests were all around me here. There were even groups of Amish-type folks on their horse-drawn buggies. The farmland was rich and diverse: multiple types of livestock, orchards, hay fields, etc. were everywhere. It was beautiful.

We stopped at a place called Deep Roots Distillery, a 10 acre apple orchard farm, where the guy learned he could make more money making apple brandy than having a u-pick apple farm and also made other delicious alcoholic beverages from local ingredients. Everything we tried was delicious and we bought some maple syrup from them, since it was made from his own maple trees.

We got to stroll the orchard while sipping some moscow mules and it was a nice break from the drive.

After that, we headed to our campground for the next few nights. It is located next to a beach, so we walked the beach for a good long while before going to bed.

Day 33: Anne of Green Gables!!!!!

There are two book characters that shaped me as a child: Jo March from Little Women and Anne of Green Gables. 

And ever since I was a child, I've always dreamt of going to Prince Edward Island to visit the land that inspired Lucy M. Montgomery to create such a fantastic character.

This is, quite honestly, one of the major reasons we even did this NorthEast trip: I wanted to eat lobster in Maine and also visit Prince Edward Island for all-reasons Anne. 

So today was a tourist-trap day because I wanted to see all of the things related to Anne. Paul was a great companion as we toured the Green Gables Heritage Place, with the Lover's Lane and Haunted Wood and all the other bits of the novels that I loved. 

I was especially pleased to learn that Lucy M. Montgomery wrote many quotes in her journals about her love for nature, which showed me that she and I were True Kindred Spirits. 

It was supposed to rain all day, but the rain held off until we were done touring all of the Anne of Green Gables things that I wanted to see. What great Providence! (that line would make you smile if you've read the first book).

After that, the pouring rain made things awkward for a bit: we didn't want to just sit in our tent but it was raining pretty hard. So we took our time getting groceries and then put on some rain coats to walk the beach for a bit. 

I'm so glad we got to visit the Anne of Green Gables things and I got to cross that off my bucket list.

Day 34: Driving to a very-French Quebec

We spent about 6.5 hours driving today, as we slowly head to Michigan. We decided to drive north along the coast in New Brunswick and then drive along the Saint Lawrence River on the way back. 

When we got to the most northern bit of NB, where it meets up with Quebec, we were amazed by the sudden reappearance of Appalachian mountain range. They just came up out of nowhere and it was so beautiful!

If we ever go back, I want to explore this area more! 

We crossed into Quebec, and very quickly realized that the internet wasn't lying about the Quebecers being too stubborn to use English. Everywhere else in our Canadian adventures, the provinces put both English and French on all the traffic signs and food labels, etc. 

But here in Quebec province, they were like 'NOPE!' and only put french on everything. We stopped for gas and the guy only spoke French, so Paul had a fun time trying to pay for our gas. Then, we stopped at a winery, La distillerie du St. Laurent and fumbled around with various workers there as no one could (supposedly) help us since they all (supposedly) only spoke French.

Finally, someone came over who spoke both languages and dusted off the ONE English copy of the wine list that the store owned and we were able to try some wines. 

When we got to our campground for the evening, we had some more fun trying to figure everything out with French-speaking folks and I was already looking forward to leaving this area for some English-speaking places again.

We've travelled to many places with other primary languages before, but it's never been a struggle to get by and communicate. I suppose we should have learned a bit of French before coming here (and if we come back, we will definitely do that!) but it was very surprising that this province simply refuses to have anything to do with the English language, especially since they are surrounded by all the other provinces in their country where everyone speaks English.

Day 35: French Bistro and the last long drive

We had our last long drive today, putting in about 9 hours of driving. So sadly, we didn't get to do many cool things today. We did stop for lunch at a cute French Bistro in Quebec city called Cochon Dingue Carrefour Saint-Romuald. It was on the outskirts of the city and on the main road we were driving, so it worked out nicely.

We enjoyed some duck confit in various forms and wanted to try all the food on the menu. I'm already salivating for our future trip to France. I love French food.

If we had more time, we would have explored Old Quebec City, which is supposed to be really similar to the quaint cities of Europe. Sadly, we had to keep driving.

Even though it was annoying how hardly anyone spoke English here, Quebec province was very beautiful and I wouldn't mind coming back to hike their pretty mountains and explore Old Quebec City as well. Maybe someday...

Day 36: Oil Changes and Gardens

We technically only had a 3 hour drive today, but apparently Toronto is notorious for being an awful city to drive through and it can take much longer to get to the other side. So we took extra precautions and did our drive through Toronto on a Sunday (less traffic) and with plenty of cushion-time, just in case.

Before we did our bit through Toronto, we had to get an oil change in our vehicle. We ended up doing about 6,000 miles(!!) on our vehicle during this adventure, which is crazy! It was amusing to try to figure out the miles-to-kilometers stuff with the oil change guy and he did NOT do the math correctly for our oil sticker, which was pretty funny and makes me chuckle every time I look at it in our vehicle window.

After that, we headed to the Royal Botanical Gardens in Hamilton, Ontario. Ah....so nice to be in an English-speaking area again! The gardens were very pretty and I drooled over many plants and wrote down lots of them to research in the future to possibly add to my own garden someday. 

It was a hot and humid day though, and halfway through our sweaty walks in the gardens, I started to get a bad headache. There is something about this part of the world (aka West Michigan and the Great Lakes) that gives me such awful weather-related headaches. 

So we headed to our airbnb so I could try to recover. Tomorrow is Niagara Falls and then off to Michigan and family!

Day 37: Niagara Falls and the U.S.A.

My headache did NOT diminish and I spent the night tossing and turning with bad pain. But I wasn't going to let that stop us from seeing Niagara Falls, so off we went. If I look unhappy in the pictures here, it's just because my headache was SOOO bad that I could barely concentrate on anything.

But despite the pain, Niagara Falls was pretty cool. I definitely suggest you see them from the Canadian side, though! They are WAY better to see over there. We did a boat tour, and that's the best way to see the falls. Paul could probably add more about this than me, as I was just trying to stay standing upright and not collapse in a puddle of pain. But in my blurry pain-state, the falls were worthwhile and very cool.

Then it was six hours of driving to Paul's parents house in Michigan. I napped for a lot of that, to try and get rid of my headache and it did eventually fizzle out. 

This ends our travel journal of our NorthEast trip. We'll spend the week with family/friends in Michigan and then we're back to normal life in South Carolina.

Overall, we had a wonderful time. It was great seeing so much scenery and parts of the world and I am so grateful that we have the opportunity to do these types of adventures in our life. 

NorthEast Trip day 23-31: Chillin', Grillin', and Fishillin'

 Relaxation time!

We had a nice little cottage on a lake for the week. There were a couple kayaks so we mostly kayaked, read books, and fished. Many of the lakes in western Nova Scotia were polluted to the point where trout can't live anymore. They're loaded with catfish, eels, and pickerel (small type of pike). I tried to catch an eel to see how gross they are but couldn't find any. I did catch a ton of pickerel on topwater: 

Shelburne was 10 minutes away and was supposed to be the lobster capital of Canada, but we couldn't find anywhere to eat lobster besides a crazy expensive fancy restaurant. We went to the Barrington Wool Mill which was pretty cool. They used the river to power all the spinning and weaving machines. It wasn't currently running but we did get a really nice blanket.

Overall I wouldn't say western Nova Scotia is worth visiting, but we did have a relaxing break from our travels. 

The Halifax area was much nicer with more scenery and things to do. 

We stayed at Graves Island for a couple nights camping and I went out fishing in Lunenburg. It seemed like there was really only one company that takes people out fishing in that whole area so there were a ton of fish. I caught around 50 cod, pollock, mackerel, and herring. There were 9 people on a pretty big boat so there was plenty of room to move around. Five other people caught cod over 35 inches but all of mine were in the mid twenties. Of course I only got a picture of the smallest mackerel. 

Nova Scotia isn't much like Scotland at all, but there is enough of the same music, food, whisky, and scenery to make it well worth visiting (at least the eastern half). 

Now somebody get me some seafood chowder, stat!

NorthEast Trip Day 17-22: New Scotland

Next up is the part of the trip we were most excited for. Nova Scotia means New Scotland so we were looking forward to seeing how this province compares to the glory of Old Scotland. 

The best thing to do when visiting a new place is fly fishing. There aren't any fish in the Margaree river (or I'm bad at fishing) but it was still very pretty. Our Airbnb for 3 nights was on the Cabot Trail but was 5km down a bumpy two-track road. It was nice and quiet back there and the star-viewing was amazing but the 10min drive just to get to the main road got annoying. 

The Cabot Trail is a loop road through a national park that takes around 5 hours to drive. It was rainy by the end so we cancelled a couple stops but we did do the Skyline trail which was spectacular.

There were a bunch of signs at the end of the trail warning about dangerous winds coming from the ocean due to the shape of the mountain. It can get pretty dangerous, but when we were there we just had to take our time. We would take five steps and then crouch while a huge gust of wind swept up the mountainside and then take a few more steps once it passed. 

The roads were super fun in our '07 Honda Element but I wished I had a sports car. Next time we camp in a Lotus Elise!

Unlike Scotland there isn't a whisky distillery on every corner but there is one that makes whisky in the Scotch style (malted barley with peat brought in from Saskatchewan). It was all really tasty so we thought we'd pop in to the gift shop to buy a bottle. They had a cool thing where you fill your own bottles straight from a cask...for $400.  We got a nice picture instead.

It was then that I found out about the 'Chowder Trail' which seemed like it would make my boots soggy but also made me hungry. I looked up a bunch of the best seafood chowder places and then our real vacation began. 

We started the chowder journey at the Celtic Music Center. 10/10 chowder and good live music with which to enjoy chowder. It was chowder this world (does that work as a pun?)! The word chowder quickly lost its meaning after I said it a hundred times so we moved on to Annapolis Royal on the bay of Fundy.

Chowder.

It kept raining a bunch but I still caught a bunch of striper from shore. They're crazy aggressive fish that have terrible aim so I had fun watching them chase my topwater lures. There was also a friendly seal that kept popping up near where I was fishing. Check out this amazing nature photography:

Much of Nova Scotia seems a bit run down, it sounds like a lot of businesses used to thrive but have been struggling for a while. Though Nova Scotia isn't really much like Scotland it's still pretty and has a lot of open spaces.

At this point in our trip we're pretty sick of driving around and setting up our tent, so we're looking forward to a week of chilling by a lake at our next Airbnb.

NorthEast Trip: Day 14-16: Oh Canada!

Day 14: See ya later, Acadia! It's Canada time!

When we woke up, it was drizzling, so we packed up our camp as quick as we could to get the heck out of Acadia. Farewell, crowds and traffic! It's time for civilization again...that's right, it's Canada time, baby!

The entire drive was forests and more forests. There was one "gas station" which was hilariously someone's house with a hand-painted sign that said 'gas' on it. It was tempting to check it out and start a side-adventure by entering what is clearly the beginning of a horror movie, but we were too excited for Canada. Other than that, there was nothing but trees (this is not a complaint...I loved it! But definitely drive that route with a full tank of gas or you are doomed).

It was a 3.5-ish hour drive to our Canadian campground in New Brunswick and at first we were concerned that we would get to the campground WAY too early. However, there's a time change (I did NOT know there was a time change after 'Eastern' time...) which meant we got there at 2:30pm (only 30 minutes earlier than check-in) and Paul acted charming so we could check in right away.

This was our first time to Canada (Paul went briefly at age 14 but that doesn't really count). It's funny...whenever we research other countries for our previous trips, we do all sorts of research so that nothing surprises us...but I guess we didn't really think Canada would be much different so we did zero research first. 

We forgot that they use different currency, so we had to find an ATM for their loonies, toonies and wizzle wazzles. When we got to the New River Beach campground, we were confused by the electric hookup and had to figure out if Canada uses different electric amps than us (they don't) or if we just accidentally got an rv hookup and thus actually did NOT have electricity for the night (yep, bingo). 

And then there were the bizarre symbols along all of their roads. Perhaps they got tired of writing things in both English and French on all of their road signs...? But whatever it is, the symbols are, for the most part, very confusing and hilarious. It made for great conversation as we guessed what they all meant. You're driving at 110 km per hour and rush past these tiny squares with images and there's no time to sit there and try to decipher them...I don't know what these Canadians were thinking, but it is entertaining at least! 

Here's some fun ones for you to figure out. Remember, you're driving past these tiny squares really quickly, so don't spend more than a few seconds looking at it before guessing what it is!

This is just a few of the many many signs we saw. How did you do? Did you figure out what they all mean?

After we unpacked a little bit, we decided to do the nearby hike. The description made it seem like it was 3 miles long. But it turns out it was 3 miles to the point where the trail changed names to something else and then 3 more miles, so we ended up doing a six mile hike. And there were only a couple other hikers the entire time, yay Canada!

We were pretty darn tired after that unexpected long walk, and it was 7pm before we stumbled back to our partially-made campsite. Paul put everything up and I made dinner. Teamwork for the win.

The hike was nice. It made me kinda sad though, because the forest is dying due to the Emerald Ash Borer insect issue.

But whenever there were views of the cliffs and sea, they were very lovely views indeed.

If this is the view of the ocean for most of our trip, we'll be quite blessed!

Day 15: Fundy Trail Parkway and the eternal RAIN

Today was supposed to be this really cool drive that took all day. The Fundy Trail Parkway is this beautiful drive along the ocean and you can pull over to see pretty overlooks and do small hikes to waterfalls and other cool things.

BUT. It rained ALL day. At first it was just a slight drizzle but it was also unfortunately super super foggy. As the day progressed, the fog stayed but it rained harder and harder.

There were a few mini-breaks in the rain and fog/mist that allowed us to see some of the beauty here and there. I wish we could have done this drive on a clear day. I bet it's amazing! If we ever can get back to this area again in the future, we want to do this parkway drive again.

Fingers crossed we can make that happen! But in the meantime, it was kinda a bummer to not be able to enjoy the whole thing. Still, we tried to enjoy what we could.

Day 16: Our first storm, Hopewell Rocks and Meeting Someone From the Online World

Last night was our first storm while camping (both on this trip and otherwise!). Luckily, when we got to our campsite for the evening, the rain made us decide not to put up the tent part of our camp setup. We just squished everything inside with us and slept in a slightly uncomfortable setup in our vehicle.

Around 10pm, the drizzling rain started picking up and it got very very windy. Maybe this is what storms are like right on the ocean coast, especially here. It got so windy that I was super concerned we were going to flip over. I was certain we'd wake up the next morning to upside-down campers all over the place. 

While there WERE damaged screen tents in the campground, we (and everyone else) managed to come out unscathed....but very tired. 

As we looked around the campground for storm damage, more thunder and dark clouds were on the horizon so we packed up in the rain and got out of there ASAP.

We debated about going to Hopewell Rocks since it was raining so hard, but by the time we got to the parking lot, it was an off and on drizzle, so we decided to check it out.

I'm glad we did! Hopewell Rocks is super beautiful. It's a crazy place that is super affected by the tides...it rises to up to 50 feet between low and high tide! We got there just after low tide and walked around on the ocean floor, admiring all the stone shapes and little caves and such. Paul helped them hold up the biggest rock for a while, man he's strong. 

Then we hung out in their cafe and visitor area for a bit so that we could see the same place during high tide (this is what they recommend for everyone and it was super cool, so keep that in mind when planning your own Hopewell Rock trip!).

After that, we headed to Nova Scotia! Sometimes the internet can make random cool things happen...at some point in time, I met online-only someone named Tawny. Random correspondences created an opportunity to see her on this trip. Tawny generously offered to host us for the night and even though she was mainly a stranger to me/us, we decided to be brave and adventurous and accepted her lovely offer.

We met up at a restaurant (NOTE: if you are EVER in Wallace, Nova Scotia, check out Wiley's by the Wharf! They were incredible! Great food and super nice! And bonus if it's your birthday, they go above and beyond!!) and then followed Tawny and her family to their homestead.

It's a beautiful homestead and I tried not to get too jealous of her sheep (and other livestock), many acres, and multiple outbuildings. We had a lovely chat long into the night and woke up to a delicious breakfast. And fresh coffee (no more instant coffee!). Having a night to feel at home was really great after two weeks of mostly camping. 

We've found that on each of our trips some of the most memorable days are when we meet kindred spirits: There's the Irish guy who drove us around to show Cris all sorts of ancient cairns and stone circles, Paul's family in the Netherlands who brought us into their homes and offered us coffee every 5 minutes, and the Austrian man that sat with us and his neighbors to enjoy some beers and awkwardly try to speak each others' languages. And now the Nova Scotia family who invited us in to their home for a night and left us with full bellies, delicious jam, farm-fresh eggs, and a jar of goats milk.

Northeast Trip: Day 10-13 - The rain in Maine falls mainly in Maine

 On day 10 we finally made it to Maine! We explored Wolf's Neck Woods State Park for most of the afternoon.

There's an eagle in the top of the tree just left of center, yep I'm a photographer. It was pretty cool but also quite warm. We both planned to spend the first 10 days in shorts and t-shirts and then change to longer clothes once we got up to Maine, but it turns out we should have packed many more warm-weather clothes. If anyone knows someone in the market for a 17 year old vehicle that smells like sweaty feet let me know, otherwise we might need to burn this stankwagon to the ground. Here's some less stinky lady's slippers:

The next 5 nights will be camping so we got a surprisingly nice motel for cheap (shoutout to Traveler's Inn in Brunswick). Before that we stopped for some lobster rolls. The place was highly rated so we were excited for our first taste of Maine lobster! I don't get why anyone eats there: tiny bun, plain lobster, bad coleslaw on the side, $62. 

Day 11: Acadia National Park

After working all morning we stopped at the Maine botanical garden, but it was almost 90 degrees so we didn't feel like looking at flowers in the heat and decided to just leave. We drove to Acadia and made our way to "the quiet side" to the Seawall Campground. The road along the coast was recently washed out (later we walked to see it and there are huge sinkholes that took out the entire road) so it took a bit longer than expected. It's a nice campground walking distance to the ocean so we set up and read books on the rocky shore. Somehow I took zero pictures today, but it was still nice.

Day 12: Hotcadia, Saharacadia, Heatwavecadia (maybe one of these works?)

So hot. It was 90+ degrees by 10AM. We tried a hike, Cris bailed halfway but I sweated my way to the top of Acadia Mountain.

It was pretty but not anything mindblowing. We cooled off in Echo Lake which was nice but extremely busy, which at the time we didn't realize is the least busy part of Acadia. 

We finished the day with lobster at Thurston's. They catch their own lobsters and you can pick out which one you want to eat. It was amazingly good and cheaper than the lobster roll debacle. As we ate there was a storm that cooled it off a bit so we could sleep.

Day 13: Ewww, people

There is not nearly enough parking for how many people go to Acadia and we're still not even in the busy season. Each lot we went to we had to wait for a spot to open up and there were huge lines of cars parked along the road everywhere. We hiked 3.5 miles around Jordan Pond which was a pretty nice and easy walk. 

Half the hike was on single-lane boardwalk so it was pretty annoying to have to stop and let the continuous horde of people going the opposite direction. 

It was really hot still so Cris decided to just read by the beach while I climbed Beehive Mountain. It's only a couple mile hike but it goes straight up the side of the mountain. There are a bunch of switchbacks that have iron rungs attached to rocks as ladders and handrails so it's pretty strenuous. It would have been amazing if there weren't so many people (notice the trend?). I've never been on a hike with a queue. It was pretty much climb three ladder rungs, stand on the ladder for 5 minutes trying not to look down, climb the rest of the way up. Then wait 5 minutes so the next person cleared the thin walkway over the precipice, then wait again. It was pretty agonizing in the hot sun but the views were nice. 

I explored some side paths, listened to some children scream about the leaches that were swimming by them in the lake, and then made my way back to Cris. 

The drive back to the quiet side was nice, but we were happy to get out of Acadia the next day. The heat did put a damper on our enjoyment since we cancelled a couple longer hikes, but I don't think we'd come back anyway just because of how many people were there. There are prettier and less busy places all through New York and Vermont. 

NorthEast Trip: Day 7-9 - ebikes and weehikes

We really need to come up with a better name for this trip, NorthEast trip lacks a certain panache. Maybe just "The Nor'easter" or "PePaul's Big Adventure". Whatever we call this it's time for the Dainings to go to a tourist trap!

Day 7   I (Paul) love a good cave and a good river and a good skydive (bad skydives are particularly bad), so we found a place with two out of the three. Stone Bridge and Caves has it all (but not skydiving): a 180 foot long bridge of stone over top of a rushing river, gem mining, waterfalls, and walkways cobbled together by a half-blind toddler. 

It was actually pretty cool. The river cascaded over a few small waterfalls and then went underground forming a rock bridge over the river. It's hard to take pics of holes but you can see how the river just disappears. Apparently there's a big lake right under the gift shop. There was also another cave where pretty much the entire thing was filled with waterfalls (again hard to photograph holes filled with water) 

We had fun and saw some trout. New bucket list item: catch a trout in a pitch-dark cave....naked.

Day 8

Today we threw all of our plans out the window nearly killing a nice Vermont couple. We had planned on more hikes up mountains but were kinda sore and sick of that so we rented ebikes and rode 28 miles. Now we're a whole new kind of sore. 

There's a really nice bike trail through Birmingham, VT all along Lake Champlain. 

The view over Champlain were beautiful with mountains in every direction. Once we got past Birmingham there were fewer people and the path becomes a causeway, it's just a 20-foot wide pile of rocks in the middle of the lake with a bike path on top. It's super cool. However, boats need to get past this random thin strip of land so there is a "cut" where boats can go through. As a result a bike ferry is needed. Two guys run a ferry that only asks for donations, you load up your bikes and they ferry you the 50 feet to the other side of the cut. A drawbridge would be more efficient but a ferry on Lake Champlain is so much more glamourous (extra 'u' added for class). 

On the other side is South Hero island which has a winery, a nice beach, and a brewery. We got some pretty terrible beer and rested for a while on the beach. Ebikes are much easier to ride than normal bikes but we were still pretty tired after only half the trip. There was a big sign advertising maple cremees at a farm so we stopped. Turns out cremees are just ice cream. Some of us are afraid of lactose so we sadly moved on.   

We were biking from 10AM to 5:30PM so that's all for today. Definitely rent a bike and do this trip if you're ever near Lake Champlain, it's wonderful. 

Day 9

This is our last big driving day (6ish hours) so not much else is going on. We stopped at Lake Willoughby, VT. It's a beautiful lake without too many people around so we grabbed a beer and enjoyed the views. 

After a two mile hike we were a bit warm so we went for a dip. The water was cold enough to take your breath away but I've read that cold plunges are good for the soul or something. Souls replenished we headed towards Maine.

NorthEast Trip: Day 3 - Day 6: A Trillion Steps, Grand Canyon, and Gorges

 

At the top of 1000 Steps!

Day 3: A Thousand Steps and Hyner View

It was a six hour drive to our next location in Pennsylvania. After working in the morning, we packed up and headed off.

To make the drive more tolerable, we stopped about halfway to do a hike called: Thousand Steps - Standing Stone Trail.

Years ago, some jerk-boss wanted his miners to quarry at the top of a mountain. There was no way to get up there, so the jerk-boss had his miners carve out what ended up being approx. 1,000 steps (it's more like 1,050) into the stone to get to the top. 

Every day, the miners had to trudge straight up a mountain on the uneven stone steps that they had carved out to get to work. And at the end of their 12 hour mining shift, they had to stumble their way back down. 

Super crazy. What is also crazy is that Paul thought it sounded like a cool first hike for our seven-week long adventure. It ended up being approx. 2 miles of hiking and it was basically straight up a mountain and back down.

Our legs could barely hold us up by the time we got to the bottom of the mountain again....maybe not the best 'warm up' hike to do. Laugh. However, it was absolutely beautiful up there and it was a great workout/hike.

We stumbled/crawled out of the car to our campground for one night at Hyner View State Park. NOTE TO SELF: come back to this state park in the future for a longer time! It was a small campground with great showers, electricity, and a perfect loud stream right next to our camp setup. We really liked the campground and wished we were there longer.

This area of Pennsylvania is absolutely beautiful (Paul was drooling over all the flyfishing streams!) with rolling green hills and streams everywhere. We are already talking about coming back for a longer time so Paul can go flyfishing and we can check out the area more.

Day 4: Hyner View Overlook and Pennsylvania's Grand Canyon

The first thing we did when we woke up was drive up the mountain to the Hyner View Overlook. When the winds are right, hanggliders fly from here. Unfortunately, the winds weren't correct on this day so we didn't get to see that. I tried to find a way for Paul to hangglide here but that didn't work out. Maybe if we come back in the future we can make that happen!

Hyner View Overlook was super beautiful. It was a great way to see the entire beautiful area of Hyner View! 

After that, we drove for a few hours to see something that is called "Pennsylvania's Grand Canyon". Our interest was piqued. We had a few options for hikes and chose one that sounded pretty cool. We drove all over the place on windy roads through the mountains. The final 20 minutes of the drive were intense gravel roads that went straight to the bottom of the mountain.

We got to the location in the directions/g.p.s. and...it was a dead-end with no trails. So we wasted about 40 minutes on this one, since we had to turn around and head back out on the same gravel road. The joys of adventuring in the unknown!

After that long waste of time, we headed to the next option on our list to see this so-called Grand Canyon. We went to the Overlook area at Leonard Harrison State Park. It was an overlook and a canyon-rim hike of about 2-3 miles. 

It was nice and very beautiful, but maybe not quite as grand as the Grand Canyon in the west...

From there, we headed for our camp for the next two nights: Watkins Glen State Park. The whole drive there, Paul was trying to figure out why he knew the name 'Watkins Glen' and then remembered JUST as we got there that it is a Nascar racing track (he knows it from video games). The track is right next to the campground so that was kinda loud. Also, after being spoiled at Hyner View campground, with it's seclusion and hot showers and such, Watkins Glen campground just couldn't compete (crowded and bad bathrooms).

We also had our first encounter with an attached tick....which was an interesting adventure as well. The northeast is supposedly covered in ticks, so we did kinda expect this to happen. 

Just a glimpse of the beauty of Watkins Glen Gorge

Day 5: Watkins Glen Gorge: AKA the Most Beautiful Place in America

Look, I can admit: I've got a bit of a strong bias here: I've always preferred Europe to America. For history, culture, and everything in between. But I'm trying to find something cool about America to wax poetically about. It's one of the reasons we're doing this trip.

And I might have finally found it. Watkins Glen Gorge is easily one of the most beautiful places I have ever been to. 

I'm embarrassed that I've never even heard of it before. So if you're like me and never heard of it, allow me to introduce you to the sheer beauty of Watkins Glen Gorge. 

Now add it to your own bucket list and savor it with your eyeballs, too. Everyone should see this beauty!

We did about 5 miles of Gorge hiking and it was a lovely day. We have been talking non-stop about doing more in Hyner View area all the way through Watkins Glen. There's just lots of beauty up here to see and many more trails to take!

Day 6: More Gorges and a Botanic Garden

Sadly, it was time to leave this area of the world and head off for the Syracuse area of New York. We'll be back, Watkins Glen! 

We started by enjoying a wine tasting at Lakewood winery, which is just outside the Watkins Glen campground. Their wine was okay.

We then headed for Robert Treman State Park to see another gorge. There was a mile long hike that went around it and in it. It was a lot of up and down and totally worth it. It was very beautiful. Not as beautiful as Watkins Glen, but still very nice.

After that, we headed for Cornell University's Botanic Garden. Their botanic garden is insanely huge. WAY bigger than what I'm used to from Clemson University. We walked through their wildflower forest/garden and herb garden and vegetable garden before running out of time and steam. We probably did about 4 miles of walking there.

I wish I had gone to a University with a garden setup like this! I probably would have majored in something that landed me a job at a University garden. And I would have walked in them all the time and probably interned there or something. It was amazing!

After that, we crashed at a hotel for the night in Syracuse. It was nice having a normal shower and toilet for a little break from campground stuff. 

Next up, we're heading for Vermont!