PA to MI / Across Southern Ontario
Driving from Pennsylvania to Michigan | Schuylkill River Trail | Mt. Pisgah County Park, PA | Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural NHS | Fort Erie, ON | Driving Across Southern Ontario | April 2024
After almost 3 weeks in Pennsylvania and almost 3 months of non-stop work, the outage season was over and we were free to go back to living in our van. This summer, we don’t have any lofty goals or big road trips planned, like building a van or driving to Alaska like last summer, which is for the better considering we don’t have as much time off and we’re being more conservative about the miles we put on our van. So this summer, our van travels will mostly take place out East, going between assignments, and heading to the mountains whenever we have the time. But first, we had a little over a month off and some family events to attend, so we planned a 3 day road trip that would take us to Curtis’ family in Michigan.
From King of Prussia, we headed Northwest into the Alleghanies where we soon stopped for an afternoon walk in the town of Port Clinton, right along the Schuylkill River. Parking was a bit confusing though. The Appalachian Trail passes through the town, but there wasn’t exactly a trailhead parking lot or even a trailhead. We parked at the scenic railroad station and asked for directions, to which they said we could just ‘walk across all the tracks’ and ‘just keep your eyes out for the trains’ – almost the exact opposite what you expect from an operating railroad. After parking in a nearby park (the one thing we couldn’t do was park in the station spots) we carefully made our way across the rails and then up a short and steep slope to the junction of the Appalachian Trail and the Schuylkill River Trail. Because of how steep the AT was at this point, we opted to just follow the Schuylkill down river. Truthfully, it wasn’t very scenic and the logistics to get to the trail were annoying enough that we wouldn’t recommend it, but it served its purpose of getting us out of the car and walking, if only for a short while.
After a quick lunch, we continued North through the ridges of Pennsylvania, grabbing a couple new counties. Towards evening we made our way to Mount Pisgah county park (not to be confused with Mt. Pisgah State Park right next door). We drove up to the top of the mountain where we thought we might be able to find a place to park for the night, but things looked very off season, unofficial, and muddy to the point that we decided to head into New York to find a place to sleep. At least the summit counted towards my prominent peak goal, so it wasn’t a complete loss.
We ended up staying in one of the New York state forests South of the Finger Lakes region and near enough to the interstate to be pretty convenient. Since it was still the shoulder season, camping was free and we had the whole place right on a small lake practically to ourselves. Too bad the nights and mornings were still cold in New York, otherwise we might have considered kayaking on the lake.
The next day we headed West to Buffalo where we planned to cross into Ontario. But first we made a stop at Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural NHS just North of the downtown area. It was here, at a private residence, that Teddy Roosevelt was sworn in as president following the assassination of President McKinley at the Pan American Expo also in Buffalo. Roosevelt was first informed of the assassination while vacationing in Vermont on Lake Champlain, but was assured that McKinley would live. Roosevelt then went out to hike on and around Mt. Marcy in the Adirondacks when he was informed that McKinley would likely die and he immediately headed for Buffalo. We’ve actually been to that spot in the Adirondacks where Roosevelt received the news and began his journey to Buffalo.
Unfortunately, the museum was by tour only and obviously Charlotte wasn’t allowed, so we grabbed our cancellation stamps (including a neat Eclipse Stamp), took our pictures, and then headed for the border. We had an uneventful crossing into Ontario on the Peace Bridge and then immediately stopped for a walk and lunch near Fort Erie at the entrance to the Niagara River.
The fort (which saw action during the War of 1812) was closed for the season, but the views across the water to Buffalo were quite nice, there were some nice sidewalks along the lake shore, the sun was shining, and it almost felt like spring.
From Fort Erie we followed county highways along the South Shore of Ontario (or is it the North Shore of Lake Erie?). We made a brief stop to walk along the beach at Long Point, but were otherwise content to just drive. Overall we were somewhat surprised to find that most of the shoreline was developed farm land. There were some towns with waterfront property and some provincial parks at the mouths of rivers, but the majority of the land up to the short bluffs above the lake was made up of fields and farms.
We stayed the night for free in a nice nature preserve a bit inland from the lake, which was probably the only place we could have camped considering all the provincial parks were still in Winter mode. After a slow morning enjoying the warming temperatures and the short trails around the preserve, we continued further West and stopped briefly at Southwold Earthworks NHS – a double walled, pre-Columbian village of Iroquois speaking natives. There wasn’t much to see, but sometimes it’s just the history that counts.
We continued from here non-stop to Sarnia where we crossed back into Michigan on the Blue Water Bridge. The crossing for passenger vehicles took over an hour, likely due to it being a Friday afternoon. We also ended up in the slow lane with the very chatty border patrol guy who was curious about my job and acted like he understood how radiation worked while making uninformed comments about it. We also thought it was weird that he wasn’t at all curious about what was in our van, and didn’t ask about Charlotte at all. Once we were finally passed that, we were able to stop to visit with my grandmother, and enjoyed a late lunch and a sunny afternoon walk with her.
