I have been so excited about the Perseid meteor shower as there would be no moon and they sky was supposed to be very clear for the peak days of the shower Wed-Fri. I decided to take my nephew for a little overnight backpacking trip 8/13-8/14 on a fairly easy section of the AT (as this is only the 2nd time he would be carrying his pack). We got permission from the Hamburg Borough Office to leave my car overnight at the Hamburg Reservoir and set out on our adventure.
Year: 2015
NJ/ MA/ CT state high points
I have to say I just came back from an absolute wonderful weekend road trip with my Dad!
As we were heading to the NJ state high point, somewhere in PA, we happened to see a guy standing on the side of the road wearing a backpack and holding a cardboard sign– all I saw on the sign was a stacked A T written in black sharpie— the famed symbol for the APPALACHIAN TRAIL! I yelled for my dad to stop!! “He’s an Appalachian trail hiker! Should we give him a lift??” My dad quickly replied “SURE!” So I hopped out and flagged him over.
Old Loggers Path
Old Loggers Path in Loyalsock State Forest, PA is a backpacking trip I tried YEARS ago and failed miserably. I had a MAJOR asthma attack going up the very first incline and couldn’t catch my breath. Of course I forgot my inhaler (which I honestly hate using anyway because I start shaking so bad from it) so we turned around. I was very disappointed and embarrassed, and couldn’t catch my breath even on the downhill. We were with two people who hike all the time and are in AMAZING shape- one of whom hiked the entire AT. We still had a great weekend hanging out at Kevin’s cabin, and doing some other hiking trails, but I still felt bad that we couldn’t do the OLP because of me.
RI/ NH/ VT/ MA State Highpoints
Kevin and I had a 3 day weekend so we decided to try to knock out a few state highpoints. I wanted to do the same trip the Summit Chicks did and snag 5 highpoints in 3 days – CT,MA, VT, NH, and RI. Piece of cake right? Honestly it was a bit harder than I thought to try to plan everything and where we could stay. MapQuest is AWESOME and I love that you can put in your route and click a button so it shows you lodging and campsites along your drive. I planned to do the exact same route the summit chicks did, but Kevin said that he didn’t want to drive his giant truck up Mt Washington on a Saturday when there would be tons of traffic and people to deal with. I agreed- there is actually some rules about how big and wide your vehicle can be for Mt Washington – Kevin’s was ok- barely, so if you are planning this trip and have a larger vehicle you may want to look into this! So we ultimately decided to do the loop of highpoints the Summit Chicks did, but in reverse.
Harney Peak, South Dakota
When our vacation to South Dakota was approaching we would have one of the following conversations with people:
“What are you doing for vacation?”
“We’re going to see Mount Rushmore.”
“Where’s that?”
“South Dakota.”
OR
“Where are you going for vacation?”
“South Dakota”
“What is out there?” in a totally confused tone of voice
“Mount Rushmore”
“OH! I never knew that’s where that was!”
Mt Davis, PA and other Pennsylvania adventures!
I have to say, I have never really been to Pittsburg or the surrounding area before, but my parents were talking about how they always wanted to see the Frank Lloyd Wright house Falling Water. I read online that Falling Water is pretty close to the PA state highpoint Mt Davis- so let’s make this trip happen! 🙂
blisters and bug bites 