Presque Isle State Park, Pennsylvania - August 16th to 17th, 2021
When you live and travel in a camper van, you are at the mercy of the weather. From the forecast, we thought we’d be spending most of our time inside our Red Tail Lodge while camped outside of Presque Isle State Park in Erie, Pennsylvania. However, weather is fickle. We were able to get out and enjoy the wonderful state park after all.
Monday was a moving and resupply day. We did laundry at West Branch State Park in Ohio before we left since check out time was not until 1:00 pm. West Branch State Park Campground is a lovely facility. We may be back to actually check out the park. About half the lake is set aside as a no-wake zone. We past one of the kayak boat launches. It is a nice sandy beach just for kayaks. The campground was a little farther from Cuyahoga Valley National Park than we would have liked. It took us about 45 minutes to an hour each way to commute over to the national park every day.
When we reached Erie, we shopped at Wegmans grocery store. It is a popular chain out east. We shopped there all the time when we lived in upstate New York. It is a nice store, but it took us a while to find everything because the layout is a little different than what we are used to now.
Our campground reservation was for Sara’s Campground, right at the entrance to Presque Isle State Park in Erie, Pennsylvania. Our site was south of the road. There is another section north of the road which has a strip of beach along Lake Erie where they allow people to pitch their tents. It looks like the majority of the campground is occupied by long term campers. Many of the rigs or mobile homes have permanent structures around them, like decks, porches, and storage sheds. From the campground, you can hear people riding the roller coaster at the neighboring amusement park, Waldameer Park. Waldameer closes at 9 pm, so the noise was not an issue for sleeping.
Right next to the campground is a little restaurant, called “Sara’s Restaurant” of all things. It is unclear whether Sara’s Restaurant has any relationship with Sara’s Campground other than they are located next to each other. The restaurant has items like hot dogs and hamburgers. Most importantly, they serve ice cream. The ice cream is soft serve, but we can’t complain because it is less than 50 yards from our camp site. They even had shakes for Left Buddy (LB). However, LB thought they gave him the wrong shake. It had a little bit of a caramel flavor to it. The decor of the diner is cute and fun. We walked over there for ice cream after dinner and we planned to come back the following day.
It rained most ofMonday. We put our awning out so that we could cook and eat dinner outside despite the rain. When the rain let up for a little while, we walked over to the public beach on the shore of Lake Erie so LB could skip stones on the lake. This was lake four of the five Great Lakes that he has skipped stones on so far this season. Only one more to go! We sat outside under our awning until the mosquitos drove us back inside the van.
When we checked the weather forecast on Monday, it called for rain most of Tuesday. However, when we got up on Tuesday, the forecast had changed. Rain was not predicted until the afternoon. So we hopped on our bikes and rode the 13 mile bike path around Presque Isle State Park, the Karl Boyes Multi-Purpose National Recreation Trail.
The state park covers the peninsula that surrounds and forms Presque Isle Bay by the town of Erie. The paved, multi-use trail covers most of the park. We followed the path along the bay side on the way out and the lake side on the way back. The path is nicely shaded most of the time. There are marsh areas and ponds that play hosts to a variety of birds. We saw a couple of signs along the road indicating turtle crossings, but we didn’t see any turtles.
On the bay side, next to what is called Misery Bay, is Perry Monument. The monument commemorates Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry’s victory over the British in the Battle of Lake Erie in 1813. After the battle, Perry’s remaining ships and men harbored in Misery Bay over the winter. Many men died due to the harsh conditions and many of Perry’s ships were put to rest in Misery Bay. There is another monument to Perry on Put-in-Bay island in Lake Erie. Perry’s Victory and International Peace Memorial on Put-in-Bay is maintained by the National Park Service and honors those who fought in the Battle of Lake Erie as well as celebrates the long-lasting peace among the U.S., Great Britain, and Canada. We have been to Put-in-Bay several times over the years. Perry’s Memorial on Put-inBay is 352 feet tall with an observation deck at the top.
Our campground neighbors, Jesse and Jodi, told us about a lighthouse at the end of Coast Guard Road inside Presque Isle State Park. So when we reached the sign for the Coast Guard near the end of the peninsula, we turned onto the road. The road goes past a small bay with small houses floating on stand-alone docks. The only way to reach each house was by boat. The houses looked like they were permanently anchored. They also looked like they had electricity, so we wondered where the electricity came from. There were no solar panels and no visible wires leading from shore. Our guess is that they ran the lines along the bottom of the bay.
At the end of Coast Guard Road is the North Pier fishing area and a large pile of sand. We did not see any lighthouses. Were our neighbors sending us on a wild goose chase?
We got off our bikes and walked out onto the pier. Then we could see past the large pile of sand. At the end of the pier is the Channel Lighthouse. It is still in operation, but not open to the public. The lighthouse was still neat to see. Thank you, Jesse and Jodi!
From the North Pier, we headed back to the trail. Our next stop was Budny Beach where we sat down and ate our snack. The beach is named in honor of Patrick Budny who became the first person to swim the 23 miles from Long Point, Ontario, Canada, to Presque Isle in 1975. He accomplished this feat in 26 hours.
This reminded Right Buddy (RB) of a former teammate when she swam for her local YMCA in high school. His name was John Muenzer. She remembers him as a very determined and hardworking person. He didn’t start swimming competitively until he was in high school. He showed up to his first swim practice in boxer swim trunks instead of the little Speedos that everyone else was wearing. Rumor had it that he threw up after that first practice. However, it wasn’t long until he was the best swimmer on the team. He went on to be a star swimmer at the University of Toledo.
While in college, John started training to swim across Lake Erie. His original goal was to swim across the widest part. After two unsuccessful attempts, he chose a shorter route. The hard part was not the distance, but the cold water temperature and high waves. His support crew pulled him out of 8 to 10 foot waves on the first attempt. During the second attempt the following year, his crew forced him to stop because his core body temperature dropped too low. His successful attempt was from Point Pelee in Canada to Cedar Point in Ohio, a distance of 34 miles in 24 hours and ten minutes in 1983 (https://www.openwaterpedia.com/wiki/John_Muenzer). RB looked up John Muenzer. According to her snooping, he got back into long distance swimming in 2009, swimming across the English Channel. He has since swum the length of Tampa Bay and swum around the island of Manhattan. He plans on swimming from Catalina Island to Long Beach California in 2022. Go John!
From Budny Beach, we continued on the bike path to Presque Isle Lighthouse. We paid our $7 per person to tour the lighthouse and climb up the tower. The tour was well worth the money. You can see over fifteen miles out across Lake Erie from the top of the tower. Volunteers both in the house and at the top of the tower were full of little informative tidbits.
The day turned out to be beautiful. The sun even peeked out every now and then. It never did rain. We returned to our camp site after biking almost 18 flat miles, only 154 foot elevation gain, in a leisurely four hours, including the lighthouse tour.
After our ride, we walked over to Sara’s Restaurant. Initially we were going for ice cream, but RB thought the onion rings looked good and LB is always ready to eat hot dogs. We didn’t have a real lunch, just granola bars, so we splurged. RB got the kielbasa with kraut, onions, and bell peppers along with onion rings. LB got a foot long hot dog with curly fries. The food really hit the spot. Of course, we had ice cream afterwards. LB’s shake still did not taste like vanilla. Whatever they put into their vanilla shakes, he is not a fan. RB really liked her vanilla/chocolate twist cone, though.
For the rest of the afternoon, we hung out at the campground. LB used silicon to remount the cell phone holder that had fallen off the dash and the couple of metal plates that had come off the driver door window for our shades. They were previously mounted with VHB tape. We’ll see if the silicon works better. (Still holding strong after three months).
We had quinoa tabouleh for dinner. Since it was light and healthy, we decided to head back to Sara’s Restaurant for more ice cream. This time LB had a vanilla/chocolate twist cone. He enjoyed that much better than the funny flavored vanilla shakes.
We ended the day by walking over to the beach to watch the sun set over Lake Erie. It was a beautiful way to end a beautiful day. Days are even sweeter when they turn out better than your expectations.
Check out our related video: Presque Isle State Park, Pennsylvania
(RB)