Stone stairs, NY, and the Tough Mudder

Letchworth State Park’s Glen Iris Inn

There has been so much going on around here lately, it’s been hard to stay focused. I meant to post about our recent trip to NY (I did actually sit down and start to get the pictures resized and edited, which incidentally led to the previous post of accidentally deleting a large amount of photos), and I meant to post about getting a new camera that has video capabilities, woo hoo! (and then discovering how weird my voice sounds on video, blah!), and I meant to post about my hubby’s upcoming tough mudder and raising money for wounded warriors, but I haven’t managed to sit down and write about any of that.

UNTIL NOW! (Very dramatic, huh? lol)

The main reason is that we are getting ready to move. We’re not sure where to yet, which is both exciting and terrifying, and it hasn’t been all that conducive to creating. My hubby just finished up his active service contract with the Marine Corps, and we are now free to move where ever we want! I can’t wait, I love the opportunity to start from scratch and explore a new place! (also the excuse to get rid of stuff we haven’t used in forever is a plus.) For a while we were moving around a lot, 3 moves in as many years, and I was getting tired of the packing/unpacking that went along with that. But we have been in one place for about 4 years now, and I am excited about finding someplace new!! Especially when it will be somewhere of OUR choosing, yay! So job and house hunting has commenced 😛

We were able to take some time to go visit family in PA recently, and in the middle of that we took a mini vacation with my Dad and step-mom up to NY. We visited 2 beautiful state parks (Letchworth and Watkin’s Glen), and checked out a couple of awesome museums (Corning glass and the Rockwell). Originally when I thought of NY, I thought that the whole state was just the city, lol. But it is not, and it has a lot of beautiful scenery, making for a really pretty drive. I took a ton of pictures (and so did my hubby, hurray for backup pictures!), so I thought I would break them up into different posts, to keep it from being a mile long 😛

First up is Letchworth state park. It seemed to be the smaller of the two state parks, but part of the trail was closed due to some damage from all the rain the area had had recently, so it may not actually be much smaller than Watkins Glen. While the rain might have made a mess of part of the trail, it also made waterfalls really strong, which was cool.

I am a bit obsessed with the stonework, especially the stairs and the bridges, that both of the parks had. I will admit, I took a LOT of pictures of stairs. But that’s normal right? I’m sure it’s totally normal 😀

  

Rainbow in the mists of the second waterfall.

It was overcast that day, but we didn’t get rained on. All of this is from the mist off of the second waterfall! Made us quite soggy 😛

      

You can make out a stone bridge just to the left of center, but that was part of the trail area that was closed, so we didn’t get to go there.

This was as close to the third and final waterfall as we got, but it was still a beautiful walk and we had a great time!

More stairs. I wasn’t kidding about being obsessed. I didn’t post all of my stair pictures tho, so you should be happy 🙂

Important: My hubby is raising money for the ‘Wounded Warriors Project’ through the Tough Mudder. It is a 10-12 mile obstacle course, generally run by people who are a bit off  their rockers, (read: slightly crazy) but still lovable 😛 Besides regular(?) obstacles, there will be ice water, electric shock, possibly fire, and mud. Lots and lots of mud. My hubby, his mom, and his brother will be participating as team Minion. They even have matching shirts with minions on them 😛 I shall be spectator-ing, as I am in no need of freezing or being shocked electrically.

If you would like to support this worthy cause through this insane event, you can donate to my hubbys team here! All donations are greatly appreciated, and go directly to the ‘Wounded Warriors Project’ through Eventbrite. Thank You!!

You can find more info on the tough mudder here, and the wounded warrior project here.