Waterfalls - Glorious Waterfalls

Letchworth State Park in western New York, besides being voted 'Best State Park in the Nation”, is known as the Grand Canyon of the East. I think perhaps somebody has a few delusions of grandeur. That is not to say that this place is not impressive and beautiful, but it might be a little bit of a stretch.

The campground has eight loops in it and if you are traveling with a pet, you are limited to only three loops. Doesn't make too much sense to me because it seems to me that the majority of people are traveling with a pet. I am currently in a pet loop but there is a non pet loop right out my back window. Go figure. This is also the first campground where I have had to produce Miko's rabies certificate. Ohio doesn't let you drink in their campgrounds and New York wants your paperwork all in order. Different priorities I guess.

During the Depression, this park had three CCC work camps and the stone work along the paths is impressive as are all of the buildings. On one of the sites of a work camp, they have a statue and informational signs all telling us about the Civilian Conservation Corps.

Letchworth is a park that is about fourteen miles long. The campground is in the north end and almost everything else you might want to do here is in the southernmost three-four miles. Since the speed limit in the park is only 25 miles an hour, it takes about thirty minutes to get down to the sights. I spent most of my time on the trails and because Miko was with me and not allowed in the buildings, I did not go into the people buildings such as restaurants(yes, this park had sit down restaurants), museums and nature centers. We just stuck to the trails.

The main sights, besides the gorge itself are three waterfalls- Upper, Middle and Lower. Miko and I hiked to each of them, plus a few other trails. I think Miko actually got a little tired hiking. Usually I'm the one giving up.

The rest of this post is going to be nothing but pictures. It was a beautiful place to spend a few days.

Miko Ears

Upper Falls - that is a railroad bridge that they are in the process of replacing. 

Upper Falls without the bridge - I like it better this way

Middle Falls - these have a 107 foot drop

View from Inspiration Point - Middle Falls up front, Upper Falls way up on top

Which way should I go?  I took the not so easy way which was much more satisfying

Lower Falls

The only bridge crossing the gorge, built by the CCC

Miko looking way way down the gorge

What a glorious place Letchworth is. Can you imagine what it must look like when the leaves change?  Miko and I are the luckiest ever to be able to see this. 

Trials and Tribulations (Of A Very Minor Sort)

My scenic site at the Erie Fairgrounds near Buffalo - it was just me and that other guy there - nobody else ever came by

I am awakened at 6:00 am on my last day in Buffalo by a loud rhythmic clicking noise. I jump up and it seems to be coming from the refrigerator. I turn off the refrigerator and the clicking continues. I turn off the main power switch for the RV and thankfully it stops. But then I hear a drip, drip, drip noise. Again from the fridge. I can't see anything happening inside the fridge so I open the front door of the RV to see if I can discover what is happening. There are two black panel covers right behind the fridge area. The top one contains all the fridge controls, the bottom one is the one that has the furnace controls. Water is pouring out of the furnace area.

I opened up the top panel and discover that the hose that sends water to the ice maker in the fridge is leaking like all get out. I tightened the hose and it stopped dripping. I opened up the furnace cover and there is a lot of standing water there. I mopped up the water and turned on the main power switch again. Click, Click, Click from the furnace area. I quickly turned it off again and tried to figure out what to do. Keep in mind, I am not the most mechanically adept person. I finally figured I needed outside help so I called my friend Dave back in Mpls and woke him up. He listened to my problem and then brilliantly said, pull the fuse for the furnace. I did that, turned the main power switch back on and the clicking stopped. Dave told me that the circuit board had probably gotten wet and just needed to dry out. Later that night, I put the furnace fuse back in and all is well. Kudos to Dave for crawling out of a warm bed to get me back up and running.

I had a fairly short drive to my next spot – Letchworth State Park – or so I thought. I normally use Google Maps to tell me how to get from Point A to Point B. The problem is that Google doesn't know I'm not a little car motoring down the highway, but a huge 18,000 pound beast. Google just wants to take me the shortest, quickest route, even if that means going down tiny little country roads or across roads with a 6,000 pound load limit. I normally check with a Motor Carrier map book that I have that truckers use to make sure there are no low bridges or unfortunate roads that I should avoid. Well, with my morning stress factor, I did not check the trucker guide. I ended up spending a lot of time taking unplanned turns to avoid the load limits and the low bridges. Did I mention that western New York is super super hilly? And who in their right mind puts a stop sign at the bottom of a super steep hill? I actually had no idea where I was going but eventually muddled through and got to Letchworth.

Once I got the RV in my site, I go to move the car also and I have a low tire warning going off. Luckily, the town of Perry is about three miles away so I drove over there and they put air in all of my tires. They were all about 3 to 5 pounds low.

Oh, I forgot to mention - when I started my drive, I needed gas.  I picked up about 65 gallons at a gas station at $2.29 a gallon.  Ten miles later, I drove onto Seneca Nation land where there were a ton of gas stations with gas at $1.79.  Oh well.

I guess that every now and then, days like this happen. I am just grateful that everything worked out. If the furnace circuit board hadn't dried out, it would have been a very cold rest of the trip. All is good and I will spend the next few days exploring Letchworth which has been voted the 'Best State Park in the Nation', or so they say. They don't tell me who voted or where this vote took place, but they sure do have a lot of signs announcing that fact.

This post is already long enough and is severely lacking in pictures. I will make up for that in the next post. It will probably be all pictures, no talk.

My site at Letchworth, much more to my liking