Hart Family Vacation 2024 (Day 2 - Cemeteries, Lighthouses & Covered Bridges)

We slept in a bit and left our hotel in Macedonia, OH around 8:30, timed to arrive at Lake View Cemetery around 9:15. We had planned to tour the James Garfield Monument in the cemetery last year but were disappointed to find the monument closed due to construction. This mausoleum is amazing! If you are in the area, take a few minutes to get the tour.

The upper level balcony gave us an amazing view of the city and Lake Erie.

The Wade Memorial Chapel is another beautiful building with a peaceful setting. We didn't take the time to tour the chapel due to a full day ahead of us. 

With a full day of driving ahead of us, I knew that we would need some things to stop and see along the way - while planning the trip, I saw two of the Ashtabula Covered Bridges and added them as a quick detour to our day of driving. This was a great stop!

The state of Ohio has the 2nd greatest number of covered bridges in the US - Ashtabula County has 19 of those! I wasn't aware of this when we were there (we found out, thanks to a nicely displayed board in the park). The Smolen-Gulf Bridge (below) is the longest wooden covered bridge in Ohio.

The wooden covered bridge below is on the foot/bike path - it was so cute!!

Once across the bridge, the girls & I headed down to the smaller, bike path bridge while Matt & Will headed back to the van. They drove down and met us at the lower parking lot, which was a nice surprise (no hiking back up the hill!)

I've placed Ashtabula on my "vacation with Matt" list. It would be beautiful in the fall and there are lots of back roads and little towns to explore, as well as the beauty of Lake Erie in their backyard!

An hour up the road, after crossing in to Pennsylvania, we grabbed lunch and then enjoyed Presque Isle State Park. This spit of land takes you out from the mainland (Erie, PA) and along Peninsula Drive, a loop drive that juts out into Lake Erie. We made a few stops along the way, enjoying a lighthouse and beach (only Maddie, Matt & I got out for the beach). 

We left Presque Isle State Park and started our 3 hour drive to Rochester. We had a few things on our agenda for Rochester but we knew that we wouldn't have time to see everything that we planned. Researching the area, I had pinpointed a few parks and High Falls Platform, but those things were scratched as we headed into Rochester. 

Our 2 stops - in one cemetery - would be it for Rochester. We found the gravesites for Frederick Douglass and Susan B. Anthony (reading up on their lives as well) and then hit the road again.

We had just over an hour of driving to our next stop - Harriet Tubman's Gravesite in Auburn, NY. We were racing against time (sunset) and hoped that we would arrive before they closed the cemetery for the night. We got lucky!

We grabbed a late dinner and then drove to our hotel - another 90 minutes south, in Apalachin, NY. 

Day 2 Favorites

Matt - Garfield Monument, Presque Isle State Park

Becki - Ashtabula Covered Bridges

Kaitee - Presque Isle State Park 
Will - Chipmunks at cemetery

Maddie - Presque Isle State park (esp the beach)