I told Olivia that we were going to see where Jim and Pam got
married (any Office fans out there?).
The crowds were pretty bad on a Friday and we swam our way through
tourists to finally make it to the top of the falls for a picture or two. I would truly appreciate the falls more if
there were less people and maybe if I had gone on a boat ride to get
misted. This time around, I wasn’t
greatly impressed and neither were the kids.
Not sure about Wendy, but I’m not going to drag her into this
controversy. I’ll just cut this off at
the pass and say we can agree to disagree for those of you who are die hard
Niagara Falls fans.
Once we made our way out of the Buffalo area, once again, cursing
at the poor signage getting out of the area, we eventually landed outside of
Erie, PA at our KOA. As we were backing
into our site, Dan & Carol Burton (aka – the inlaws), arrived just about
the same time. We hung out at the
campsite and had our camping specialty of chicken tacos which the kids and I
have perfected since starting the trip. Wendy
said they were gourmet tacos, but I’ll take that with a grain of salt since
she’s been on her own as far as cooking for the last month. 
The next day we headed out early to Presque Isle State Park to
support the Rotary Club by eating at their pancake breakfast. Once we carbo-loaded, we met up with Wendy’s
Aunt Joie and Uncle Rich (Dan’s sister) along with Aunt Joie’s grandson Nate
and his girlfriend, Lydia. Olivia and
Lydia were mistaken multiple times during the next 6 or so hours whenever they
were called. We took a nice boat ride
around Preque Isle Bay on Joie and Rich’s boat before heading back to their
dock and meeting up with Cousin Sandy (daughter of Joie) and her family. Sandy’s husband, Rick, actually was the
person who married Wendy and I! It was
great to catch up and talk about local school budget politics (oh wait… that
was just Rick and Dan) before heading to Beach #8 on Lake Erie. 
Now, being a “coaster” I took incredible enjoyment of wading in
beautiful, warm freshwater with soft sand under my toes while looking out at
the horizon and not seeing land. The
waves are large enough to make you think you’re on the ocean, but there is no
salt to coat your body which needs an immediate shower after getting out. Lake Erie (at least where we were) was such an
amazing place in the US to experience the ocean without any salt. The traffic was terrible and the crowds were
thick, but it was worth it. I think
Olivia was in for three hours straight!
The only down side to Erie was that someone put their phone on the
back bumper of their truck and drove off (i.e. this guy). Yes, the phone was completely destroyed by
multiple vehicles driving over it, but it surprisingly was still working enough
to let us know where it was and it still connected to the truck’s Bluetooth. I lost a couple of day’s worth of photos, but
beyond that everything was recovered after going into town to purchase a new
phone. Yippee. We headed back to meet up with everyone at a
local joint called Sara’s for some fried perch and fried zucchini. Not
too bad, but after getting a side of fries beforehand, I was pretty fried. Don’t worry, I actually rolled my eyes while
writing that last sentence. Sometimes my
own puns can make me gag a little.
We headed back to the KOA with Dan and Carol to enjoy a last
bottle of wine before heading off to bed.
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