Day 13, NY and home

Our last day. We had one stop, Allegany State Park, in western NY. Here we did a short hike to Bridal Veil Falls, Thunder Rocks, and the Stone tower. After an hour or so in the park we piled in the car for our 9-hour drive home. Stopped in Cleveland for lunch and got home about 6pm central time.

Day 12, New York

Today we visited Catskill State Park and the site of the Woodstock concert (40th anniversary today) in central NY and Letchworth State Park in western NY. We also made a stop in Binghampton, NY to visit two old college friends I hadn't seen in over twenty years.

Our first stop was Kaaterskill Falls, where we saw the tallest waterfall in NY. It wasn't a long hike (about a mile round trip) to the falls but it was so humid outside, we were sweating 5 minutes into the hike (except for Jessie). We stayed long enough to get a couple of pictures (the morning sun didn't help with the lighting) and left the park before it became too hot and humid.

Our next stop was Woodstock. Here we visited the monument and walked around the field where 500,000 hippies attended the 3-day concert. Since it was the 40th anniversary, we expected to a see concert or something taking place across the enormous field, but there was nothing. Just an empty field, and suprisingly very few people. The monument was rather unique. It had an image of a hand strumming a guitar as well as some words engraved on it. The heat was really beginning to get to us (and being in an area with absolutely no shade didn't help either) so we headed back to the car and blasted the air conditioning.

We then drove to Binghampton to visit old friends. We couldn't stay long as we had to drive half way across the state to our last stop of the day.

Letchworth State Park is mainly known for its three magnificient waterfalls. The upper, middle, and lower falls are the largest we've seen since our visit to Niagara Falls a few years back. We had just enough time to see all the falls, a deer, and a couple snakes before leaving for our last hotel stay of our vacation.

One short stop to Alleghany State Park in the morning and then a long drive home.

Day 11, Adirondacks and Western Massachusetts

Today started slow with a stop to the Vermont Teddy Bear Factory. I was assured on the phone that the factory would be making bears today but when we got there we were told otherwise. We decided the tour wasn't worth the entrance fee so we left and made our way to a ferry across Lake Champlain to upstate New York and then on to western Massachusetts.

Our first real stop was at the Lake Placid Olympic Training Center, where we got to go bobsledding down the concrete track used in the '80 Olympics. The ride lasted 39.07 seconds, as we flew down the 1/2 mile course at 55 mph. It was so much fun, it immediately became one of my favorites for the vacation so far. Afterwards, we took a tour of the newer course, which is used for training. We got the opportunity to walk down this mile long course which would be used for bobsledding, luge, and the skeleton. After we were done with this part of the Training Center, we made our way over to the Ski Jump. We had to take a chair lift and then an elevator up 26 stories in order to see the ramp the skiers jump from. It was hard to imagine that anyone would be crazy enough to launch themselves into the air at a height like this. There were also some people training in a pool down below, so we watched them do a couple jumps too. The passes we had received also got us onto a gondola which took us the summit of Little Whiteface Mountain. The ride up was really fun, but we didn't stay for long; we wanted to go the summit of the actual Whiteface Mountain. We drove 8 miles up an extemely bumpy road in order to get the the summit of this mountain. From the summit we had a great view of all the surrounding mountains and Lake Placid.

We decided to end the day by visiting Mount Greylock in Massachusetts. At the summit was a monument dedicated to soliders of all wars. The monument looked like a lighthouse, and had quotes about death engraved all around it. We didn't stay here for long either because it started raining shortly after we arrived. We did have enough time to get in a couple pictures before it really started pouring, so we left the park and drove to our hotel.

Day 10, Vermont

We started the day off by visiting the Cabot Creamery, where we saw how cheese was made and packaged. The factory was only making cheddar today, but it was really neat to see how all the machines worked together in order to create giant blocks of cheese. We tasted a wide variety of cheeses and dips, my favorite being the Jalapeno Cheese.
We then headed over to the Ben and Jerry's, where we took a tour of the factory. The tour started off with a movie on how Ben and Jerry got their little ice cream business started, and was followed by a talk on how the machinery works to create ice cream through an 8-step process. The tour ended with tasting a sample of the flavor Image Whirl Peace, which was absolutely delicious.

We canceled our Camel's Hump State Park hiking plans for today and added the Von Trapps Lodge to our schedule (this was the singing family from The Sound of Music). The Lodge was a beautiful wooden building which overlooked a blanket of tree covered mountains. We didn't stay long though; we just took a couple of pictures and walked around the lobby and gift shop.

With the day coming to an end, we headed to our hotel. When we opened the door to our room we could instantly smell a strong smoke odor. We notified the front desk, but they told us that since we made reservations through Orbitz, a third party, they had given our room to someone who ordered directly through them. With all the other rooms full, we demanded that our room be sprayed. But when an employee came out from behind the desk with a Ka-Boom bottle in hand, we knew immediately that we had to move to another hotel. So after a series of phone calls and internet searches we now had a room in a hotel that was 100% smoke-free. With a much nicer room that doesn't reek of smoke, there's no doubt we'll all sleep good tonight.

Tomorrow we head to upstate New York. Adirondacks and Lake Placid. Hard to believe we head home in three days.

Day 9, Maine and New Hampshire

Alli: Everyone thinks hell is a place down under, but let me tell you, we found it 4,000 feet up a mountain in New Hampshire, and after hiking for 7 hours we realized that we needed a vacation from our vacation.

Jessie: In a 9.5 mile hike, you would expect to drink a lot of water. Dad and Alli drank about a gallon a piece, and sweated off at least five pounds, while I only drank 8 ounces and never broke a sweat. Before the hike both Dad and Alli planned to break me because it was going to be the highest mountains we had ever climbed, but unfortunately they broke themselves down while I remained in fairly good shape.

Alli: The trail was no doubt the hardest hike we've ever done, but the view at the top was spectacular. We hiked along the ridge (Appalachian Trail) of 3 mountains, taking lots of pictures of the valley below. Everything below us was covered in a blanket of trees, with the shadow of passing clouds rolling over them. We were exhausted and running low on water by the time we reached the summit of the third mountain and decided to rest for awhile before heading down the path. Thankfully though, there was a rest stop/shelter called the Greenleaf Hut that provided us with lemonade, shade, and an opportunity to refill our water bottles. We ate what remained of our lunch here before continuing our decent down the mountain. It took about an hour and forty five minutes to finish the trail, and were so happy when the parking lot came into view. Everyone was so sore so we decided to take a few Advil and make our dinner fast and super-sized so we could relax and wash off in our hotel room. We also decided to cancel the hiking trip we had planned for tomorrow (we had done enough hiking to last us the whole week), leaving Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream Factory and Cabot Creamery as the only things left on our to-do-list.

Mark: While I wouldn't want to hike these trails again I'm glad we did because the view at the top was amazing. The girls were real troopers with only a bit of complaining. Tomorrow we get to sleep-in and have an easy travel day.

p.s. We started the day in Maine at Grafton Notch State Park. The only thing we did here was to see Screw Auger Falls and Gorge. Very pretty, short hike, and well worth the 20 mile detour.

Day 8, Acadia National Park, Maine

Today we spent the entire day in Acadia NP. Here we explored the rocky coastline of Maine. We found anemones, urchins, sea stars, crabs, sand dollars, and much more. We stopped all over the park, what a beautiful place. The view from Cadillac Mt. was amazing. The only thing that could have made the day better would have been sunshine, overcast most of the day.

Tomorrow we spend the day hiking in Franconia Notch SP in New Hampshire.

Day 7, Salem, Mass. and Maine

We started today by going to Salem Massachusetts. We toured The House of Seven Gables, Nathaniel Hawthorne's Birthplace and The Witch House (where the trials took place). We also walked about town for a while, very historic. After eating lunch at a local eatery we decided it was time to move on. While driving out of town Jessie remembered that she had left her camera at the restaurant. So we drove back to town, found a parking space, with time still on the meter, and ran to the restaurant only to notice the camera was gone. We asked at the counter and luckily someone had turned it in, crisis averted.

It was now time to head north to Bar Harbor. Along the way we made a short stop at Wolfes Neck Woods State Park in Maine. Here we walked the rocky coastline, watched a nesting pair of Osprey, and hiked about 1 1/2 miles through the woods.

Looking forward to Acadia National Park tomorrow.