East Coast Epic: Happy Accidents

Flexible. I hadn't had any intention of ending up in New York a week prior to finding myself in the state. My sister and I had planned a summer west coast trip, complete with glaciers, tide pools, and volcanoes. Life got in the way, however, and four days before I was supposed to fly to Montana we cancelled the trip. Being me, I was still itching to go somewhere, so I sat down at my computer and started looking, finally coming up with a list of places I wanted to see but no defined route or timeline to see them. I basically just started driving. Okay, there was a little bit more to it than that, but that planning process if for another post. Somehow, some way, instead of ending up in Montana I ended up on the exact opposite side of the country, meandering my way through the state of New York along the Great Lakes.

When I made tentative plans to hit up New York, crossing off another state on my list, I reached out to a friend living in Toronto, figuring if I were that close it'd be worth a shot to see if she could meet up. She could during the evening toward the beginning of my East Coast Epic, so I needed to find something to occupy myself until she was available. We made plans to meet in Niagara Falls on the US side of the border because I don't have a passport (yet!) and I set out from my campsite in Pennsylvania with no plan in mind but to see where the road might take me.

That ended up being a pretty great plan, because otherwise I never would have stumbled into a beautiful state park along the New York/Pennsylvania border. Allegany State Park boasts multiple fishing lakes nestled among the rolling wooded hills typical of the northeastern part of the United States, bisected by a couple of paved roads and an awesome dirt road. Waterfalls splash just down little hiking trails from the side of the road, and hundreds of butterflies flutter in open meadows full of wildflowers. I spent the better part of a day in the park, driving its roads and exploring the woods and meadows. I even drove that dirt road twice because it was so much fun. Happy accidents can happen, and it totally pays to not have a complete plan in place when you're exploring a new place. If you're ever in the area I would definitely check out this little park!

Excuses, Excuses

Apologetic. I'm still alive! If you follow along on my Instagram or Facebook page you guys know that I just haven't been feeling inspired to share my travels lately. I'm not going to lie, my trials early this spring, with my surgery and my wrist, took a lot of wind out of me and it's taken quite some time to ground myself again. Writing is a form of introspection for me, and I haven't really wanted to look into my own head for the last... Well, for a while. I think I'm ready to change that! I'm still travelling, of course, but the words required to write up my adventures have been non-existent. I've had four trips this summer, two major week-long (or more!) adventures and two shorter long-weekend length get-aways, and have at least a couple more planned for this autumn, though no set plans for the early winter season.

My first trip this summer took me all over the eastern seaboard; I hit twenty-four states in eleven days! I spent a long weekend in Dallas attending LeakyCon, which is a Harry Potter convention, because I am a giant nerd and Tom Felton (who played Draco Malfoy in the Harry Potter movies) was there and there was no way the eleven-year-old me would have forgiven myself if I'd missed the chance to see him. Shortly after that I spent a week climbing mountains and sight-seeing in Colorado with Torrey for the sixth year in a row. More recently my husband and I attended a wedding on the Texas Gulf Coast which was a beach get-away as much as a celebration, and it was awesome.

You can probably tell I have a ton of material to write about from the last three or so months, which means it's about time I shove my butt into gear and actually get to it. I always try to write as chronologically as I can, as this blog is pretty much a personal digital journal that I am just egotistical enough to believe someone else might want to read, but this time I'm just going to write about whichever trip or adventure or story inspires me most, so that maybe I'll actually get something down on a page for the first time in months. So fair warning, I guess, that I might be talking about a few days in New York in one post then abruptly share a story about climbing a 14,000 foot mountain in Colorado in the next.

I think that's plenty enough of me rambling and rattling off excuses about my abysmal lack of writing. If you're still with me after my hiatus, thank you for sticking around! If you're just finding this blog, hopefully I'll post a little more consistently from now on. My next post will be published soon, so stay tuned!