Upstate NY

Upstate New York is a beautiful place, and we were very excited to be able to experience it to it’s fullest. During the next couple of days, many different things happened. We met our second cousins  for the first time, even though they were 20 and 25. Joe is a savant and can remember everything about music, dates and times, and even movies down to the exact day or month that they happened! The other one, whose name was asked to be protected, was a New York City cop. During the time, he taught me how to use his father’s gun, and he was also on a quad expedition with us as well. Joe was a fantastic story writer, and he is thinking about getting a blog (I will make sure to post it if he does).

We had a great time, but a couple of dangerous incidents happened along the way. Our father, who happens to be a retired Captain at Las Vegas, was using the chainsaw on a heavy branch while we were chopping wood and the main trunk of the tree fell right on his ankle. My brother and I stopped what we were doing and looked over suddenly to see if he had been hurt. Thankfully he was fine in the end, but it was still a scary experience that ended in putting him on a quad and driving him back. We were so glad that the chainsaw had not hit him or anything bad like that! Our next incident occurred when my little brother’s quad “Lost control” and slammed into the back of ours. Little Aidan had not been very careful with golf carts and other vehicles so we kind of doubted what REALLY happened but it was all fine in the end. Once again, we were lucky that nothing broke- just like our fathers leg! To top off our adventure, we left to go hiking to the waterfalls before we left to go up the east coast (That’s me looking unusually spectral in the corner)

Arriving at Pittsburg

 

Transitioning from our adventures at the Beach Party and Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania included a LOT of farmland. Though towns are a lot more exciting to look through and see what they had to offer, it was entertaining to watch the unusual illusions of light the rolling hills gave out. We passed through a couple of small towns but nothing big enough to be exciting. Once we did finally arrive at our campground that we would spend the night it was around 3:00-4:00 so we were able to set up quickly in the light. When my mother was a kid she met a girl named Colleen and became instant best friends, and when her mom met Colleen’s mom they immediately became best friends, too. Colleen was now a mother of two kids, much like ours, and we were soon going to be able to visit them when they arrived at our site. We got out some drinks and food and prepared a huge fire so when they got here it would be more exciting. My brother and I each pulled out an axe and chopped up some lumber that we could use for the fire. After a couple of trips we had everything we needed to build a large respectable fire. They eventually pulled up and we introduced ourselves, as did they. It wasn’t long until WE were best friends as well. We all shared common interests, and I mostly talked to Max, the older one that was my age while my brother talked more to Alex, the one that was almost HIS age. We eventually came back from our short walk (that we didn’t know we had gone on) and walked inside to give a tour. They loved my room that was in the back of the camper and said that it was so awesome that we could travel the country like we were doing. WE had some drinks and chips and they pulled up their favorite youtube channels and we showed them ours, and were both hooked on each others. We later went outside so we could have s’mores and talk with the adults and exchanged memories of our past couple years. I always loved burning my marshmallows so that the crunchy outside would contain the liquid inside. Many people don’t think it would taste good at all but it’s actually better than the original version of s’mores! Max tried it and loved it. We snuck chocolate inside and ate some of it and talked some more. Time passed and not a second of it was wasted, laughing and excited the entire time. They eventually needed to go around 11:00 but we would see them tomorrow. We laughed as our group walked to the car and we were still talking even as they climbed into their seats! We told them we’d see them tomorrow and walked into the camper for another 30 minutes after the fire was out and settled down until we fell asleep soon after. What a great start to Pittsburg!