Erie, PA

After a one-night stay at a Harvest Host in Fremont, OH, we headed up to Erie, PA, destined for the Lampe City Campground, near the city marina. Located near Bayfront Park, it was a nice, small and quiet campground by Presque Isle State Park - which should be the main reason anyone comes to visit Erie. Erie is pretty industrial, and as Tom likes to put it “a town with a lot of potential.” Of course, there were a lot of parts that we didn’t have a chance to discover. We liked the campground thought and it was also our first paved site, which we soon realized is quite nice as it greatly minimizes the amount of sand and grass that gets tracked into the camper! Seems we are sweeping that out multiple times a day.

We arrived early afternoon so we took advantage of the rest of the day to drive over to Presque Isle State Park. Originally billed as the “Playground of Pennsylvania” it is an isle that juts out into Lake Superior and served as a safe harbor for American soldiers back in the 1800’s; a fair amount of boat building also happened here during those times. It was turned into a state park in the early 1900s and now has many hiking and biking trails, 11 beaches (at least), a marina, floating houseboats, playgrounds, boat rentals, the Perry Monument (Perry was credited with defeating the British in a battle and keeping his men safe in and around this area), and the Presque Isle lighthouse that Owen and I toured. We also discovered the Tom Ridge Environmental Center, which is a great find. It is located just before the entrance to Presque Isle, is free, has lots of hands-on exhibits for kids and does a great job providing historical and environmental knowledge about Presque Isle. I particularly enjoyed the exhibit that explained Presque Isle decade by decade, starting in the early 1900s. In 1966, a UFO was spotted on the island, which brought about national attention and they even had plaster molds made of the supposed “legs” of the UFO that remained in the sand. Good stuff. 

When we were loading up at our previous stop in Fremont, Tom discovered that the left rear tire on the Jeep was losing air and had a nail in it. We attempted to get it fixed in Erie, but no luck and we ended up buying a new tire. Yay for us - not exactly what we had anticipated so soon but hey - it’s going to happen. Thankfully, if Tom hadn’t discovered it before we left  Ohio, it could have blown out while we were towing it behind the RV and that could’ve been really bad. So counting our blessings that he caught it when he did.

Short stop here (only 3 days) and we’re off to Niagara Falls next!