Road Trip!

With summer coming to a close, we were determined to visit all of the lighthouses on the Lake Erie coast. To do this we really needed to get our maps out and start driving. Matt and I derived a plan to start at the furthest point we felt we could travel in one day and come home. This way, wherever we left off we would be close to home.
Traveling with a two year old is never easy, let alone 3-4 hour car rides to try to entertain her through. She did rather well, we carried a lot of crayons and coloring books!


Taylor's travel tools

For today's trip we talked about heading towards Erie Pennsylvania to see the Erie Land Lighthouse, the Presque Isle Lighthouse, and the Presque Isle Pierhead Light. Up to this point, this was the furthest we had gone for a day trip. Our plan was to drive the first 4 hours all at once and stop at the lights on the return trip.
We had planned this trip 2 weeks in advance, so why be surprised when Saturday came we awoke to a gloomy, rainy morning. So what do you do? This was the only weekend available for the remainder of the month where Matt and I both had a day off together. We went for it! The closer we drove to Cleveland Ohio the lighter the skies got as well. When we finally arrived in Erie, the showers had slowed to a mist. So, we decided to have lunch first and see how the weather looked when we finished.


Hummm...guess where we ate?

After lunch, the sun started to peek thru. It was really turning out to be a nice day. Our first stop was the Erie Land Lighthouse. I'd love to meet the person responsible for the directional signs to this lighthouse! Yeah we found it, but what in the world? We felt like the mouse chasing the cheese! We spent way too much time zig-zaging through city side streets, one block at a time. It took us 30 min. to travel 5 miles! Needless to say I made our own directions from here out! I found a far better way to leave.


Erie Land Lighthouse

From this point, we headed to the causeway that took us over to the Presque Isle State Park. Well into September now, summer has "unofficially" ended on Labor day. We were a bit bummed, many of the beaches in the state park were now closed for the season. Note to self: remember sandals to walk the beach, and our bikes to ride all over the peninsula! We definitely are looking into coming back again and staying for a weekend next time.


Presque Isle Lighthouse

The Presque Isle Lighthouse was a very nice lighthouse tucked away on the beach. The day was really turning out to be nicer than we anticipated, so we opted to walk along the sand to admire the beauty for a while. We couldn't get much closer to the light unfortunately, the Presque Isle Lighthouse is currently used as a residence for park personnel. This was good though, we were able to walk the grounds of the home though.


The U.S. Brig NIAGARA sailing across the bay.

We had no idea the USS Niagara was going to be out sailing today, did we pick a good day or what? It really put you in the mind of what things were like back then. I wish we had gone back to the museum on the mainland and gotten closer pictures and information. As things would turn out though we were running out of daylight and really needed to keep moving.


Erie North Pierhead Light

Our last stop on the isle was at the Erie North Pierhead Light. We walked out onto the pier and watched the local fishermen enjoying their late summer catch. There was a lot of activity out on the water. Sail boat after sail boat came back into the harbor-- seems everyone was trying for one last outing before the breezes turned cooler.

We did stop and seen the Perry's Monument also on the isle. In full circle, this is the same perry in history that we have learned about for years at put-in-bay. The monument itself is much smaller than the Perry's Monument at Put-in-Bay, but what a striking resemblance. I may show side by side photo's later.

The sun is now getting lower in the sky, and we're not even into Ohio yet. We better get moving if we want to see anymore lighthouses before sunset! With that we end our Pennsylvania visit and start heading westward. Definitely on our list of places to return!

Want to see more? Check out their website below for more information about Presque Isle State Park.
http://www.goerie.com/presqueisle

More to come...