Day 8--Niagara Falls to Indiana Dunes State Park

Niagara Falls, NY.  October 2, 2012

Breakfast at Indiana Dunes

Dad has a viral something…fever, sneezing, headache, sore throat.  With a little aspirin, he feels much better, and luckily, we are past the main activity of this trip and on our way home.  He slept pretty well last night, and the rest of us are loading up on vitamins.  Our campground was only about six miles from the Famous Niagara Falls.  We were there before 9am.  It was slightly rainy for just a few minutes, but cleared for us to walk around the park and get some good pictures. Early October has to be the best time of year to hit this tourist destination…absolutely no crowds.  It’s a fun stop if you are sort of in the area…!  Then it was a shuffle-off-to-Buffalo, where we checked back with the Wal-Mart we’d stopped at the night before, to pick up pictures they’d developed from Janet’s camera.  Jan and I spent an hour or so on the road loading almost 500 photos into two albums.  Mom and dad are so surprised and excited to have printed pictures to show their friends as soon as they get home.

As we passed Erie, Pennsylvania, Mom saw a sign for Cracker Barrel and wanted to stop for lunch. Yum…meatloaf, pork chops, salad, and blueberry pancakes!  We could have eaten in the RV, but it was great to sit still for a bit.  Dad got a good nap in afterward.

This driving is a lot faster and easier than our Lincoln Highway.  Interstate 90 goes along the whole east side of Lake Erie from Niagara, NY; through a corner of Pennsylvania; and to Cleveland, Ohio.  Then it turns west to Toledo, Ohio and Indiana, where it curves around the south end of Lake Michigan.  We’ve been in light rain most of the day, with grey skies.  We are spending the night in the Indiana Dunes State Park—an RV camp with showers, electrical hook-up sites and separate dump/water locations.  The Park has 3 miles of sandy beach right on the lake. 

Here’s some views on the best parts of the trip:

Mom says--

“the area around Port Byron and the cemeteries--the Nye family cemetery was amazing… and Bye and Bye Hardware. “It’s hard to choose just one thing.  It was almost like going to Alaska the first time.  Every time you went around a corner there was another more gorgeous view! One of my favorite memories of the trip will be walking across the Erie Canal in Lyons and Keith breaking into song.”

Dad says—

“It’s hard to say the best part…probably, the trees in northern Pennsylvania, and the people we happened to meet. “

Keith says—

              “the fall colors in the Alleghenies, and seeing the Ewald graves.”

Jan says—

“seeing Honey Gram’s grave, and all five of us being on this bus  together.  Everyone we came in contact with was so friendly, helpful, and excited about what we were doing.”

Marcia says—

“the Ewald cemetery in Lyons, spending time with the family, the surprising ease and appropriateness of the RV rental, and experiencing the history and geography of so much of our country.”

This statue of Nicola Tesla, inventor of Alternating Current
is outside the entry gate to the Falls, where lots of electricity
is generated with hydroelectric power.

flowers at the Falls

We passed Progressive Stadium where the Cleveland Indians play. 

Mom and Dad enjoying the trip

Day 5--Gettysburg to Port Byron, NY

Our spot at the Gettysburg Battlefield KOA

The KOA in Gettysburg was great! The staff met us at the entrance to the camp and walked us to the spot, directing Keith while he backed into our camping site after dark.  It's a large camp and though there were only a few vacancies, it did not feel crowded.  The place has lots of trees and lots of activities we didn't have time for like sponsored tours to D.C., evening videos of the local Battlegrounds, and giant outdoor chess games.

Garmin took us to the Gettysburg Battlegrounds by sort of a back route.  We wandered on the roadways through the huge battleground area.  There are zig-zagging split rail fences and nearly 1,300 huge marble and bronze sculptures throughout the fields.  Every state or military unit with a tie to the Civil War seems to have erected a monument here.  Then, we walked through the cemetery area where Lincoln gave the "Four score and seven years ago..." speech.  This place had graves from later conflicts like all our American Military cemeteries.

Soldiers National Monument
near site of Gettysburg Address 

Abraham Lincoln was the second speaker on November 19, 1863, at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery at Gettysburg. Lincoln was preceded on the podium by the famed orator Edward Everett, who spoke to the crowd for two hours. Lincoln followed with his now immortal Gettysburg Address. On November 20, Everett wrote to Lincoln: “Permit me also to express my great admiration of the thoughts expressed by you, with such eloquent simplicity & appropriateness, at the consecration of the Cemetery. I should be glad, if I could flatter myself that I came as near to the central idea of the occasion, in two hours, as you did in two minutes. (http://myloc.gov)

We finally found the Visitor Center, and did the quick walk through the display area and museum shop, skipping the Park Ranger lectures and cyclorama shows in order to make it to our goal in NY by evening.

The scenery on today's drive was breath-taking!  Some areas of wooded hillsides looked like they'd been splattered with paint.  We lost the guilt about missing the Ohio River route, since the road to NewYork took us all along the Susquehanna River.  This one is wide and shallow, sort of like the Platte River back home.

This is part of a long graphic in the 

Visitor Center at Gettysburg showing how

many enlistments each state had for both
sides during theCivil War.  It was eye
opening for me, and stirred an appreciation
for the important influence and education
provided to my son and his fellow choir
students when they performed "The Civil
War" musical in high school.

We pulled into the small town of Port Byron, NY before dark and stopped to figure out a place to stay. Keith used his iphone and I went into the local cafe, where they said Hejamada was good, and fairly close.  Named with the first two letters of the four original owners of the campground, it was beautiful, peaceful, and less than a mile from the Mentz Methodist Episcopal church, where the preacher who married mom's great-great-great-great grandparents' was pastor.

This was my favorite sculpture...in the parking lot across
 from the Soldiers National Cemetery, Gettysburg, PA

This squirrel enjoys the many varieties
of trees and nuts in the cemetery.

The large domed ediface across this field is the Pennsylvania Monument.

Mom picked up pinecones...as usual...at
Gettysburg.  This one reminded her of a cigar!

Painted hills and cloudy skies in Pennsylvania

Mural in Port Byron, NY, an original Erie Canal Port city

another state line

Full moon at Hejamada RV campground, Montezuma, NY