Letchworth State Park, Castile

Due to the lack of commotion at the campground (and perhaps overexertion from trying to nurse last night's campfire), we woke up rather late. But after a breakfast of instant oatmeal, we were on the road again, heading towards Letchworth State Park and 'The Grand Canyon of the East'.

We stopped briefly in Syracuse, having found a great sounding cafe for lunch, which, unfortunately was closed. So we ate at Pita Pit. Which was yummy.

It poured briefly just before we arrived at the park, perhaps scaring away all the visitors? Or perhaps it is normal for the park to seem nearly empty? The park is over 17 miles long, straddling a deep canyon formed by the Genessee river, which used to flood approximately every 7 years until they built a giant dam in the 1940's. It's funny to see a 700 foot high dam with just a trickle of water running through it...

We took a short hike down to lower falls:
Problem with this video...

Continuing along the Gorge Trail, we hiked for an hour along the edge of the canyon, occasionally detouring around areas where the path had eroded away into the gorge. We saw a grand total of 1 person. Arriving at the stately Glenn Iris Inn, we remarked what a great place it would be for a wedding....and it happened to be hosting one at that very moment. 50 yards away is Middle Falls (see video).

We hiked back the way we came, along the shady, wooded, mossy, scenic, deserted Gorge Trail and back to our car. Stopping at this lookout point on the way back to the campground (see video).

The campground was decent, perhaps not as nice as the Old Forge Campground, but had a bizarre reservation system. You go to the front desk, they write down a list of available sites, and then you drive around scoping them out. Truthfully, it doesn't sound weird, I've just never seen anyone else do it this way, and if anything it leads to a bit of buyers remorse (wouldn't that one have been better?). Anyhoo, number 620 was ours (see video).

And then we had another crappy fire, attempting to burn the remaining two logs of useless supermarket firewood, along with all the papers I'd been unable to shred in the last few months since breaking my shredder...

After braving the fitness trail at the crack of dawn (see video)

our spirits slowed when we were unable to find a place to eat breakfast in "town", and forced to subsist on McDonalds. My day was almost ruined when I realized that they gave me a McMuffin instead of a McGriddle, killing my goal of enjoying the tastes of: an english muffin like object and pancake and egg and sausage and syrup, all in each and every bite. Sigh. I made do.

Our first milestone of the day was entering Canada, where we learned two valuable pieces of information:

1. When entering Canada, do not bother to pull over and rummage through your entire car looking for your passports. Instead tell border control that you:
* Are moving across the country (not their country)
* Do not have a current place of residence
* Do not have jobs
* Obviously do not have any pets suffocating in the backseat

2. Due to the relative equality of the USD and Canadian dollar, signmakers across Canada are currently forced to unnecessarily duplicate their efforts when displaying prices on signs.

(see video)

And thus another installment of what we'll miss (see video)