The PA Gang

Our next stop was Pennsylvania to visit with my mom's side of the family. We got to Hustontown in time to eat lunch with our Aunt Carol. After eating we unpacked what we needed for the weekend, got settled and took a short nap. Then I helped with dinner preparations and the boys ran an errand and took a look at her fridge since it had been making a clicking noise, of course, it didn't make the noise while we were there. 

That evening we played a fun game of kickball with our cousins and ate dinner outside. We were planning on going swimming at the pool the next day but it had rained and was overcast. So we skipped the pool and played some games inside. We also, or should I say I did several loads of laundry. :-) Our Aunt Julie and one of my mom's cousins came over for the remainder of the day. They grilled hamburgers, hot dogs, and chicken for dinner. We played some more kickball then taught them how to play the game Empire and played a round of that and later we played catchphrase, which was super fun! We really enjoyed getting to spend time with everyone. 

After eating breakfast and loading the car, we said our goodbyes and headed towards DC or so we thought… The GPS was taking us to the wrong Washington DC, apparently there is more than one? Thankfully we realized it before too long and hadn't gone much out of the way. 

Next Stop: Washington DC

-Sarah

The Empire State

Once we rolled into New York City,

Jacob drove along Central Park Ave looking for a parking spot. We finally found a parking garage and then walked over to Central Park. We went past Sheep Meadow, crossed the Bow Bridge and got a pretzel from a food stand there. We continued around the lake and saw lots of people biking and running on the roads inside Central Park. We saw several statues including Hans Anderson, Shakespeare, Alice in Wonderland, and the Balto statue, which was definitely the coolest one.

We left Central Park and drove through Times Square on our way to 34th street to eat pizza at a place Jacob had found on his layover in New York when returning from Israel. We finished our pizza on the steps of a church building as it started to drizzle again, then walked back to where we had parked the car and headed to the bottom of Manhattan island, driving by the Brooklyn Bridge. We parked again and walked to the Staten Island Ferry so we could ride it to see the Statue Of Liberty.

While ferrying to Staten Island, we crossed into New Jersey for a short time, and once we had docked we just turned around and caught the same ferry back to NYC. We got back to the car and made our way through heavy traffic (Jacob's still driving) to the B&H Photo - Video - Pro Audio store on 9th Ave and 34th St. This is a 3 story electronic SuperStore that has everything from Hollywood production camera rigs to simple point and shoot cameras, 85 inch 3D flat-screen tv's to 27-inch iMac computers, piano keyboards and synthesizers to waterproof speaker systems and much more. This where Jacob has purchased practically all of his camera gear from, and most of my GoPro attachments, albeit we purchased everything online. After browsing through some awesome equipment we retrieved the car and left New York City via the Lincoln Tunnel. 

And so ends our New York adventure, with us driving late that night until we stopped to sleep in a hotel before reaching our relatives in Pennsylvania the next morning. 

Next Stop: Hustontown, PA. 

-John

Not Your Average Head Light

After we finally found the Thousand Islands visitor center, it was around 8pm, and all of the campsites on the main island were occupied so we decided that we would drive through the night and get to the state park in Maine, instead of trying to get a campsite here in Canada. It was about 6 hours away so after eating dinner we continued on our way. We crossed into the U.S. around 2 in the morning. We passed a moose that was headed to Canada in the opposite lane, while driving through New Hampshire. We got to Grafton Notch State Park in Maine around 4 in the morning, I think. We were planning on camping at the park but sometime the day before we found out that there was no campsites at this park, but we were pretty tired so Johnny and I got our sleeping bags out and slept at the picnic area and Sarah slept in the car for a couple hours. We went to the waterfalls that were a few miles down the road and I went for a swim in the freezing cold water. There wasn't too much else to see at this park, and our mom had told us that some of the worlds most photographed lighthouses were in Portland, Maine, so after lunch we headed down to Portland for the rest of the day. 

We got to Portland and went to one of the most popular lighthouses in Maine, the Portland Head Light. We stayed for a couple hours taking some pictures and filming. We went to another light house that was close by but it was not nearly as photographic as the first one so after a bit we left for another campground about an hour away. After a good night sleep we were on our way to New York.

Next Stop: New York City 

- Jacob

Here's a couple photos from Maine: 

Canada

We heard that the Canadian side of the Falls had a much better view than the American, so we decided to go straight there instead of stopping on both sides to save a little time. When crossing the border, the border patrol guy asked us what we had with us because it looked like we had all of our lives possessions. Really? Granted the car is really packed, you have to be a little cautious when opening the back to make sure nothing falls out. 

Anyways he let us through and we were on our way to Niagara Falls. We forgot that Canada uses the metric system, so it took us a minute to figure out how fast 50 km per hour was or how far 18 km were. After we parked and got out of the car we started getting hit by the mist in the parking lot. And we weren't even to the Falls yet. Once we made it over to the Falls area we were taken aback by how massive it is. Niagara Falls was AMAZING, to say the least, definitely the best waterfall we've seen so far! So huge!

There was so much mist and a ton of people everywhere! We walked along the railing for a while, capturing photos and taking in the view. We watched as the boats took people out right to the bottom of the waterfall, I'm sure they got soaked despite the ponchos. From where we were you could actually see both the American Falls and Niagara Falls. 

Since it was Sunday there was going to be fireworks over the Falls that night, so we were waiting around to see that and trying to find out if the Spurs won the championship. :-) At about 9 o'clock they turned on the lights, which was pretty cool. Jacob spent some time taking long exposure photos. Which means you have to stand super still for what seems like forever, in reality it's only 10 seconds. 

Eventually 10 o'clock came and the fireworks started. It was pretty impressive, even though it only lasted about 6 minutes there were so many bursts with so many colors. The sound was amplified as it was echoing throughout the area. Once it was over we took a couple more photos as most of the people cleared out then we left. 

The next morning we walked back, there were far less people than the previous night. We didn't have too long before we needed to go back and check out of the hotel. Once we got packed up we started driving towards the 10,000 Island National Park. We came to a ferry and took that across to Howe Island, we drove for a little bit, further down the road than what our directions told us but we didn't see one sign or anything about the 10,000 islands. So we kept going and came to another ferry. We asked that guy where the Park was and he told us it was back on the mainland. So we got on that ferry, and when we were already partly across we realized that we were taking this ferry back to where we started. Our phones did not have service in Canada so we had pulled up the directions with wifi at the hotel. So we couldn't look anything up or change the route. We do have an atlas with Canada but the park wasn't on the map. Once we got back to the first ferry we decided we'd try again, we thought maybe we needed to turn off the main road on the island sooner. The ferry guy asked us if we really like riding the ferry or what... Jacob told him we were trying to go to 10,000 Islands. He says, "Oh that's about 10 miles that way in the next town over." Because we were already on the ferry, we rode over then got off turned around and came right back. 

We went to the town in search of the park and still had a hard time finding it. You would think with a 1,000 Islands we would be able to find it. By the time we found the visitor center it was closed, so we headed back towards the USA. 

Next Stop: Grafton Notch State Park, ME

-Sarah

Here's a couple more photos from Canada: 

Day 30

Once we'd left the Indiana Dunes State Park, we had about a 5 hour drive to Cuyahoga Valley. Durning the drive through Indiana and Ohio we payed a ridiculous amount on the toll roads, and took a short detour into Michigan to eat lunch at the visitor center. Driving into the park we passed a little metal sign that told us we had entered Cuyahoga Valley National Park, and we were thinking, 'If they don't even have a normal national park sign, what's the rest of the park going to be like?'. We did eventually find a bigger sign more like what we were expecting as we left the park. 

When we found the information center we talked with a lady who had been there for the past 40 years and knew the park inside and out. She suggested some of the parks popular trails for us to hike on. The first short trail, Brandywine Falls, was a wooden walkway that led back into the woods and down 67 steps to the waterfall.

Our next stop inside the park was the Ledges Trail, which was a one and three quarters of a mile loop that led past a bat cave (it just so happened to be closed) and an overlook that was really quite disappointing. The trail itself was pretty nice being right at the base of the "Ledges", mostly sheer cliffs of rock around 50ft high that would have been fun to try and rock climb, but unfortunately this park does not allow rock climbing. 

Our second to last stop was to walk along the Towpath Trail that led through the beaver marsh. Actually… we barely walked into the marshes before we decided that it really didn't seem that cool, so we turned back. 

Our fourth and final stop in the Cuyahoga Valley was the Everett Road Covered Bridge that crosses Furnace Run. The reason the bridge is covered is to protect the wooden boards from harsh weather conditions, this is also the only remaining covered bridge in Summit County. Upon departing the park we drove an hour to a campground called Country Acres to spend the night.

The highlight of our stay in Ohio was getting to see the Wolfe Family. So, next morning we went to visit our friends. We met them at Sukkot (Feast of Tabernacles) last year. It was great to see them and get to catch up. After an hour or two we said goodbye and left for our next destination.    

Next stop: Niagara Falls, Canada

-John

Lake Michigan

When we got to the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, sometime that afternoon, we had a little trouble finding the actual campground. But once we found it we quickly got camp all set up and then started driving towards the lake. Lake Michigan also looked a lot more like the an ocean than a lake, with the waves rolling in and the sandy beach streching for miles in both directions. We were surprised that the water had the same brownish color that we had seen in all the state parks along Lake Superior. We walked in the water along the beach for a while, we couldn't find any dunes though, which was one of the things we were looking forward to seeing. We were trying to decide if we wanted to go for a swim or not, but we ended up just walking back to the car and drove back to the campsite, after a good dinner and some s'mores we went to bed. This park wasn't all that impressive to us, the campground was nice, but I think we needed Joseph to help us build some sand castles on the beach.

Next stop: Cuyahoga National Park

I didn't take any pictures here with my camera... So if anyone was looking forward to seeing pictures of Lake Michigan, I'm sorry but you'll have to google it.

- Jacob 

The North Shore

After leaving Grand Marais we headed down the North Shore Scenic Drive to the nearby Cascade River State Park. At the visitor center we purchased a Minnesoda State Park's day pass for $5… $5! It's anywhere from $5-$8 per adult to enter a single state park in Texas. We then hiked the short trail to park's popular bridge over the river where you could see a series of 'cascading' waterfalls. Once we arrived at the bridge and looked at the river we were quite surprised:

It was kinda disturbing at first how the water was a dark brownish color and whenever it flowed over the falls it looked almost yellow in color, but it wasn't like there was a bunch of dirt in the water. It looked to me a lot like Bill Miller's tea with lots of bubbles, (for those of you who don't live in Texas, it looked similar to Rootbeer soda) the reason for this because the river's water comes from the marshes/bogs which are full of composting organic matter that leaves the water looking like tea. So we hiked a little further on the trail that stayed right by the river which had carved it's course through the rock creating a small canyon.

It was pretty foggy so we went back and I drove us to Temperance River State Park. For the next hour or two driving from state park to state park was by far the most foggy weather conditions I have ever been in. Lake Superior was never more than a quarter mile from the road but sometimes you could hardly see it. After parking we walked along the paved path until we could just barely see the Hidden Fall in the mini canyon because of the fog. So we turned around and walked to a bridge with some more mini waterfalls before the river flowed into the lake.

So I drove us down to Split Rock Lighthouse State Park, parked and went in to use the bathroom, came back to the car, and since it was super windy decided to go eat lunch in Beaver Bay first before going to see the Lighthouse. Lunch was good but expensive, and then we were back on our way to Split Rock. So I parked again and then we found out that it would cost $9 for each of us to see the Lighthouse and because the wind was still blowing so strongly Jacob wouldn't have been able to use his Glidecam… So, we've been to the Split Rock Lighthouse State Park twice, but haven't actually seen the lighthouse…

From there we went on to the last park of the day for us, Gooseberry Falls State Park. Gooseberry was my favorite Minnesoda State park we stopped at. It had the biggest falls and you were able to get right up next to them if you wished, but the water was still that funky brownish color. Here we did some long exposures which came out pretty nice:

We didn't really see anything else worth doing and we had a long way to go, therefore we got back into the car and headed to Wisconsin.

- John

-Next Stop: Indiana Dunes, Indiana.

The Jeziah's

We hadn't seen our friends, Roger and Anita, in a few years; so we were excited for the chance to get to visit with them. They live in small town in Northern Minnesota right on Lake Superior. 

When we got there they had prepared some delicious Chicken and Wild Rice Soup, a popular Minnesota recipe, for dinner. After eating we walked down to the lake and walked along the beach. That night the water was very calm. They say sometimes it's the complete opposite with a bunch of big waves which make it look like the ocean during a storm. Even still Lake Superior looks more similar to an ocean than a lake. When you look out at the water, it appears as if it extends for miles and miles. We walked back to their home through the town, there were lots of gift/souvenir shops.

Once we'd had a bowl of ice cream, we got out the map and started planning our route for the next few days, looking at the different parks and such along Lake Superior. With a good nights sleep, and great breakfast we said hello and goodbye to Arwen (their angora bunny) and set out. 

Next Stop: Lake Superior, MN

-Sarah

Everything is Awesome! ;-)

How to describe our stay at the Kerr's house...  If I had three words they would be: Everything Is Awesome. If I had four, Fun, Feast, Family and... Tim. If I had a whole blogpost it would probably say something like this.

After driving through the night, and getting breakfast in Fargo, ND we arrived at the Kerr's house in Clearbrook MN, at 10am, right on schedule. There were several families that were spending the weekend with them for the feast of Shavuot, some of whom we had met at Passover in Missouri earlier that year. It was really nice getting to see everyone again after so long. 

Once we had finished setting up our tent, we walked over and watched Annie and Nathan put up there tent :) Then we all went to the pole barn and got introduced to some more folks and chatted for a while until the last family arrived. A little bit after noon we all got together to wave the loaves and bless the Father for this His provisions. After a great lunch and some good fellowship some of us went out and played volleyball for a while, and some did some davidic dancing. I think about everyone there must know how to play the guitar plus a couple other instruments. There where about 7 people playing guitar on stage while 3 or 4 played the drums, bongos and cajon. Anyway, it was awesome watching all the youth do some praise and worship on stage that afternoon. We ate dinner and then decided to play capture the flag with some of the youth that was still there. We where thinking about continuing our game from Passover that we never got to finish, but without Elijah and Ahavah there, it just wouldn't have been the same.... By the time the mosquitos forced us to quit it was just the Kerr family and us. So us kids went back into the pole barn and taught them how to play the card game Mow and had some ice cream. When we finally finished it was pretty late so we quickly showered and went to bed.

We woke up late Monday morning and had a quick breakfast before I went with Annie to pickup some of the guys who's car broke down on the way to a job. I brought Tim and the kiddo's back to house while the other guys went on in Annie's car to complete the job. After lunch us older kids went out to Itasca State Park, bringing with us all of our long boards and GoPro's. Itasca park is the headwaters of the Mississippi River, it's 1,475ft above sea level and 2,552 miles away from the Gulf of Mexico. The water here is clean and clear, completely different from slow moving muddy Mississippi waters that we are use to seeing in Mississippi. We crossed over the Mississippi and back on some rocks at the bottom of the lake where the Mississippi river begins it's journey. Now we can say that we've crossed the Mississippi on foot, maybe I'll swim back across the Mississippi when we are in Mississippi. I think I might have used the word Mississippi to much...

Now onto the longboarding, well actually there wasn't really a good place to long board in the park since all the paths there were covered in pine needles, but we did find a pretty good hill right outside the park. I tried to run with them while flying my glidecam, but I couldn't keep up for long :p so after a while I became brave enough to risk wiping out and breaking my camera, YOLO, lol, and rode Tim's board while flying the glidecam. Man, it was smooth! Rock solid, I never came close to wiping out :) and I got some really sweet shots.  I think John probably went the fastest of us all tho, but nobody really cares right? :p Anyway we all had fun till a ranger showed up in a mini van, and told us about four guys who had started canoeing down the Mississippi a week ago, trying to beat the four guys who held the Guinness world record for canoeing all the way down the Mississippi... Well we still had a lot of fun after he told us... 

While we were coming back from the headwaters, there were a lot of 6th graders around the visitor center, and walking by with all of our cameras + glidecam + longboards + GoPro's + Tim, (which = epicness) we got asked if we were making a movie :)

We stopped at DaRoos, a pizza place on the way back from the park. We tried to pour ourselves water from the pitcher the waitress brought us, and we all failed, miserably, me worst of all, I think. But we all felt a little better after we asked the waitress to pour water for us and she spilt a little too. And speaking of water Tim showed us how to drink from two cups of water at the same time... 

We really enjoyed the pizza and the chance to hang out with our friends.

We didn't do too much once we got back to the house so after a bit we all just went to bed.

The next day we decided to make some music videos with Gideon and Tim. So we took Tim's 7 piece drum set + all my camera gear out into the middle of a field, to shoot his drum solo. It took us several trips to get everything out there, but it was worth it. It probably took us an hour to shoot it once we had everything set up. With all of our GoPro's and glidecam rig we were able to get some really neat shots. 

Yes he's wearing a chesty... And yes that's his pink iPod... I told you Tim was cool. :D

Once we got the drum kit back inside we went down the road a little ways and started shooting another music video with Gideon and Tim, playing a song they wrote called wintertime. They have a band called Wrestling Angels and they have a YouTube channel with some of their music on it. You should definitely check them out, I've filmed a couple of the videos they have on their channel, not to mention they are really good.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5YBtJ-S5mYWe81AKIxQ1Vw/videos

Unfortunately I don't have any editing software on my sisters laptop so I can't post the videos we shot now, I'll have to wait till I get back home. :(

Once we got that video shot we decided to try another one at an old wooden house down the road that was abandoned and falling apart. But by the time we got there we were surrounded by so many mosquitos that we knew there was no way we could stand still for 4 minutes to record the video. So we started heading back to the house to try to find a better location to shoot this video, without so many mosquitos. Once we got back to the road in front of their house, we were rescued by a squadron of dragonflies that swooped in and started taking out mosquitos left and right. We filmed the second video there on the road, with the dragonflies flying all around us. 

We all greatly enjoyed our time at the Kerr's house, so we were pretty sad when we had to leave the next morning. After packing the car and saying our goodbyes, they sent us off singing Everything is Awesome!

Next stop: Roger & Anita's

- Jacob

Photos for this post were taken by Annie Kerr. http://www.iridescentreflectionsmedia.com/

Fargo

When we got to Fargo, ND we didn't have far to go until our next stop. :-P

We had driven through the night in order to make it to the Kerr's home on Sunday for Shavuot (Pentecost). We didn't have any specific plans for North Dakota, we just wanted to make sure we went, so that we can say we've been there. We ended up stopping for breakfast in Fargo before crossing the border into Minnesota. 

Being in North Dakota we couldn't help but think of a video we'd seen where a comedian talks about his visit to North Dakota. It's pretty hilarious. Needless to say it was not that cold while we were there. If you need a laugh, watch this video. The North Dakota bit starts at 3:36. 

http://youtu.be/o2WWzke8aqU

Sorry there are no pictures, we were too tired to take any. 

Mile: 5,678.9

The Badlands National Park was our first unscheduled stop of the trip. It wasn't too far from Mount Rushmore and since we finished there earlier than planned, we figured why not - we're only doing this once. None of us knew exactly what the Badlands were, so we weren't quite sure what we were going to see. Once we entered the park as far as your eyes could see was mostly flat land covered with vibrant green grass. The sun was starting to set so the lighting was perfect and while this was a beautiful change in scenery we couldn't help but wonder 'what are the badlands?' and 'is this it?'. We thought '22 miles of nothing? surely this can't be it'. Within a minute or so we were pleasantly surprised. 

The Badlands are a little hard to describe, but it kind of reminded me of the painted desert and a mini Grand Canyon except with more green. All of a sudden all you could see was peaks and valleys of banded colors along with buttes and wide prairies. We drove through the park and stopped at a just few scenic overlooks trying to make it to the visitors center at the other end of the road before they closed. Once we made it there we turned around and went back to some more scenic overlooks. Johnny got out his quad copter to do some filming, which basically required unpacking half the car to be able to get it out, and Jacob had his glidecam. There were no ropes or rails closing things off nor any signs that said stay off the rocks, etc so they took that to mean they could hike down and around in the canyons and valleys.  

We stayed until dark then we headed out for a long night of driving. After stopping to get a quick bite to eat and repack the camera gear we continued on. It wasn't far after that, that we hit 5,678.9 miles. In just a little over three weeks we've made it slightly more than half way (distance wise) on our trip. Sometimes it seems like we left home so long ago and have been gone for a while, but then we realize it's only been three weeks and there are still four more to go. Other times we can't believe it's already been three weeks and there is only four more left. We have greatly enjoyed the first part of our trip and are looking forward to what the second part holds. 

Next Stop: Fargo, ND

-Sarah

Here are a couple more photos from the Badlands:

Mount Rushmore

We came. 

We looked. 

We took a picture. 

We left. 

Next Stop: Badlands National Park, SD

The Teton's

After watching Old Faithful launch her boiling water into the sky, we left Yellowstone and drove down into the Grand Teton National Park. We only had half a day to spend at the park. So after checking out the visitor center and getting a t-shirt at the gift shop we started on a hike along Jenny Lake to Inspiration Point. We saw a lot of wildlife here too, including deer, marmots, a fox and a moose. There weren't as many people here as were at Yellowstone, but we did see a couple of the same people we had seen at Old Faithful that morning.

We came to a waterfall about a half mile before Inspiration Point and after looking at the waterfall for a bit; we were trying to decide of we needed some more inspiration or not, we ended up deciding we would be fine without seeing the view from Inspiration Point. The fact that it looked like it was going to rain also played into that decision. We jogged back a short distance to try to beat the rain, but it didn't end up raining until later on that evening. 

We then drove to a picnic area and cooked dinner quickly in the drizzle so we could stop at some more scenic viewing spots for Jacob to take pictures of the Tetons themselves. We were trying to recreate a picture that we had taken when we came here before with our dad of a lake and a storm brewing over the Teton peaks behind, but unfortunately we were not able to find the exact spot with the time we had. So we got these photos instead:

We were originally planning on camping for the night at the Tetons, but since we would have to leave early in the morning we just decided to drive for a couple hours and get a hotel for the night instead of risking getting rained on and having to pack up a wet tent the next morning. We stayed at a Super 8 in Dubois, WY that night, and left early the next morning for South Dakota.

Next stop: Mount Rushmore, SD

The Yellowstone Experience

Yellowstone was the first National Park established. We spent a day and a half there and got to see a majority of the parks features including hot springs, geysers and plenty of wildlife. 

When we got out of the car at our campsite, we immediately had to find our other jackets, it was cold!! The hoodies that we had been using we're still wet from the rain at Glacier the day before. We got things set up and Jacob built a fire and grilled hamburgers for dinner. After eating we pretty much just went to bed. 

Following breakfast we went looking for an information center to get a map of the day hikes. The first one we went to was closed or non existent, we couldn't find it so we kept going. We decided to do the tourist thing and just walk around the Lower Geyser Basin boardwalk, take a couple photos, and get back in the car. It smelled awful, like boiled eggs due to the sulphur. But there were some pretty cool hotsprings, the clear blue water ranged from barley simmering on the surface to boiling and steaming. We also saw some mudpots, an acidic feature with limited water; basically bubbling mud, except it was a creamy white color which wasn't quite as pretty as the hot springs. Then we walked around the 1.6 mile path through the Norris Geyser Basin. One geyser went off right when we stopped to look at it.

We finally made it to the visitor center in Canyon Village and talked to a guy in the backcountry office. He recommended the Garnet Hill Trail. It was an 7.9 mile loop, with an additional 0.4 mile trail to a suspension bridge 200 feet above the Yellowstone River. The first section was through an open meadow then it moved through a wooded area and back through the meadow again. It was a nice trail, no major elevation gains so it was a fairly easy hike. We saw lots of wildlife - marmots, pronghorns, and bison. Towards the end there was a bison directly in the path, we definitely got closer than the 25 foot recommendation. Those things are huge! It started to rain a little while we were hiking, thankfully we had brought our rain jackets along this time and it didn't last too long. We got to see a rainbow, so to me it was worth hiking in a little rain. 

The next day after packing up we stopped to see Old Faithful on the way out of the park. We had just missed it by about 20 minutes. So we waited around for another hour to see it go off. The viewing area was crowded with people anxiously waiting. It wasn't quite as impressive as I thought it would be, but it was still neat to watch. Although Yellowstone is such a big park, we feel like we were able to see a good portion of it. Now on to our next destination. 

Next stop: Grand Tetons National Park, WY 

- Sarah

Here are some more photos from Yellowstone: