There has been a lighthouse on Presque Isle since 1873. Built five bricks thick, it is a little over 57 feet high and has an attached dwelling that provided a home to the keepers and their families until 1944.
Today, visitors to Presque Isle State Park can pay a few bucks to go inside the home and climb the stairs for a bird’s eye view of the island and Lake Erie.
We decided to give my knee a rest and just admired this beautiful lighthouse from the ground. We also each left behind a few bucks in the gift shop to benefit their operation.
While things function much differently today, this remains a functioning light to aid navigation. Learn more here!
If you have ever been to Erie, Pa odds are good you’ve been past Sara’s Restaurant. Only, it’s not just a restaurant. It’s a nostalgic, roadside attraction and tradition for visitors to Presque Isle State Park since 1980.
It started out as an ice cream stand but now has a menu of hot dogs, cheeseburgers, onion rings and the like and it is always busy. Luckily, there’s a big parking lot, lots of outdoor seating, plenty of fun things to look at and staff that hustles to keep things moving.
Their motto is “Food tastes better with a smile” and we saw lots of smiles as families pose for pictures with things like Simpsons characters and a giant Humpty Dumpty perched atop a lifeguard chair. We wandered around outside so I could drool over advertising pieces before giggling at signs inside.
We did just get shakes because there’s not much food on the menu that’s vegetarian friendly other than fries and onion rings and maybe not them depending on how they’re fried. But I am not their target market and there was still ice cream.
There are sundaes, floats and cones to choose from but I opted for a shake. That’s the one thing I forgot to take a picture of but it was just the right consistency, a mild chocolate, and the perfect size.
I can see why folks have made a trek to Sara’s an annual tradition! Want to learn more? Visit their website so you can plan your visit. Hop over the Make the Journey Fun Facebook page today to see more pictures from my visit over Labor Day weekend!
This is just a three day workweek for me since I had a long weekend out gallivanting. No offense to my job or other aspects of my regular life because I’m grateful for all of it…. but … TGIF.
It’s so easy to get sucked back into everyone else’s troubles, bad work habits, and all the daily annoyances that tug at our brains and demand attention.
For this week, though, I have been working to mentally pull myself away from all of that at least for a moment or two at a time. When my brain starts to latch on to something negative, I take myself back to one particular moment on Saturday night.
After a glorious day of exploring the shores of a fairytale land called Presque Isle State Park, some light book shopping, and sipping milkshakes, we headed back to the beach to witness the sunset.
We left our shoes in the car but took towels and jackets. We took books in place of troubles. We took cold drinks instead of worries.
We staked out a spot on a small peninsula where the waves might trick you into believing you’re at the ocean and not at the Lake Erie shore in Pennsylvania. We dug our toes into the sand and I used my bag as a pillow while reclining to read.
As the sun began to descend, lower and lower against the horizon, the pleasantly warm day began to feel pleasantly cool. I stood to put on a light jacket. That’s when I noticed a large gathering of gulls on the rocks. All faced the western horizon as though they too were excited to see the cotton candy sky, colors so special that they can only be created by the setting sun.
And then, without warning, all those gulls simultaneously took off and left us alone to focus on the sky.
There was a slight breeze and the sand was turning cooler beneath my feet. I shuddered when a young woman waded out into the lake for one last dip in the golden hour.
I wondered aloud about the water temperature but she was happy doing her thing and I was happy doing mine.
And this, my friends, is where I am disappearing to in my brain when too much of the real world tries to crowd in this week.
We all need a happy memory, something with lots of sensory details that we can grab hold of and escape to when the world gets to be too much. I’m grateful for mine and encourage you to dig through your memories for one of your own. If you don’t have one, better go out and make some!
When I arrived at my Pittsburgh friend’s cute Mt Lebanon neighborhood last week, I was a little bedraggled and lugging a duffle bag so large you could stuff at least one grown adult inside.
I was supposed to prepare for just a few days but was ready for at least two weeks. Lacking the discipline to figure out what to pack, it seems I just took everything.
I called it the manifestation of all that was happening inside my brain as her husband lugged it inside.
And so began our annual Labor Day tradition.
Sometimes we go places. Last year we took the train from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia and hit all the historic sites. Sometimes we stick around Pittsburgh and she gives me the insider’s experience all over her city.
This year we did both – running away for a bit to soak in the beauty of Presque Isle State Park at Lake Erie.
It was somewhere in the middle of that park that I began to breathe better and to remember who I am. Was it when Nichola told me to turn around just in time to see a bald eagle glide across the trees? Was it when we rounded the bend of an overgrown path to unexpectedly find ourselves on shore line? Was it on a striped blanket on a chilly August Saturday as we waited for the sun to set?
I suppose it was in all of these places that I felt true joy and a connection to nature. Verizon doesn’t work great at the island so my phone barely made a peep, making it possible to enjoy life without distraction.
It has been a while since I have been able to hike consistently and comfortably. It has been a long, hard summer with the heat, humidity and a meniscus tear slowing me down.
To stand beneath a blue sky and simply breathe cooler air was such a gift. Sand between my toes as the water lapped at my ankles felt like therapy. To hear the chirp of an osprey as it soared overhead felt like a reward for good behavior. A pocketful of tiny shells and pebbles felt like presents from nature to help me recall the windswept day on the beach when I found myself again.
I’m not sure how many times I have to wear myself out and lose track of my own identity only to rediscover it while adventuring but I’m grateful every time I make my way back to me again.
