Everyday in the Life of the Harts: June 2023

Wednesday, June 21, 2023

Pennsylvania Vacation 2023 - Day 12 (Meek Family & Home)

Day 12 - Our final day of vacation. Today would be a travel day - from Perrysburg, OH to Moline, IL (home). We only had one planned stop - Mishawaka, IN - to visit my sister and her family.

We left Perrysburg, not excited for the drive (400 miles, 6-7 hours), but looked forward to seeing the Meek family and getting home.

Our drive to Mishawaka (2 hours) turned out to be longer than anticipated due to an accident and construction. We ended up rerouting off of interstate 80 and hit city traffic while trying to avoid the stopped traffic on I-80. We arrived at their house ready to stretch and eat!

Steve, Teri & Judah have lived in Mishawaka for a few years now but this was our first time to see their house - we loved seeing their home and all they have done to update it and make it theirs! Even better than their house, it was WONDERFUL to see them!

Teri & Steve planned to make lunch for us - yummy hamburgers on the grill! After eating fast food and pizza for the past 11 days, this was heaven to our tummies!

After lunch, we said our goodbyes and hit the road for Moline, approx 4 hours. Unfortunately, our 4 hour drive quickly turned in to 6 hours due to multiple accidents along I-80 and added Chicago area traffic. We made one pit stop at a rest area. It was nice to get out and stretch and play at the playground.

We stopped for dinner at Spinner's Pizza in Milan (family favorite) before arriving home.

After unpacking the van, we started laundry, took showers, sorted mail, etc. How wonderful to be home and sleep in our own beds again!

What an amazing trip! With the exception of the rain, we couldn't have asked for a better vacation. We saw lots of beautiful country, historical cities and took in a lot of historical sites. America is pretty cool!

We ended up filling up the gas tank 5x, driving over 3,600 miles and averaging almost 40 mpg. What a huge blessing for us!

A major concern that we prayed over...the Canadian wildfires were wreaking havoc across the New England states the week that we were scheduled to leave. On Wed, June 7th the NY Mets and Philadelphia Phillies postponed their games due to bad air quality (see pictures below). We feared that our day in Philly would look like this. We worried about our walking days, 90% of our days would be spent outside. We prayed for rain (irony, huh!) and a wind change. God heard and answered! One would never guess that the skies had been orange and the air unbreathable just a few days earlier. So thankful!

As I was researching our stops for my Day 7 blog post (Watkins Glen), I came across this Google Street View of the town of Montour Falls, NY. It was updated in June 2023 and another view from this road shows a carnival in the park. This carnival/festival was held on June 8-10 this year. We were driving through this town a week later (June 16) with no yellow/orange skies (overcast and rainy? Yes) So thankful for the rain...just wish it hadn't rained as much as it did while we were on vacation. Oh well, never happy, are we!

We visited 11 states, seeing numerous parks, historical sites, waterfalls (too many to count) and hiked/walked over 25 miles.

This vacation was the final trip that Matt had planned as a family. We have seen 48 of our 50 states (missing Hawaii and Alaska) - many of those states have been visited multiple times. America offers so much for people to see. So much beauty and history to explore and all are very accessible. We are so thankful for Matt's foresight to plan these trips many years ago and to hold strong to these plans. We don't know what the next few years (vacations) hold, with the kids working full time, heading off to school, etc. Hopefully we have a few more years left for family vacations.

Tuesday, June 20, 2023

Pennsylvania Vacation 2023 - Day 11 (Cleveland & Perrysburg)

Day 11 - we left Cranberry Twp and headed north 2 hours to Cleveland, with a stop along the way at Kent State University.

Along the drive, we read a brief history on the May 4 Massacre. It was sobering to read about the events of that time frame. Even more sobering to see the campus in person and read the historical markers, giving a time line and specific locations.

The Victory Bell.

The school has set up memorials for the four students killed during the massacre. All 4 were killed in this main parking lot. The light posts enshrine the area where each student was shot.

This statue, called "Heart of Steel" bears a bullet hole from the May 4th shootings.

We left Kent State and continued driving to Cleveland. After our visit to Kent State, it was nice to make some stops with a bit more fun atmosphere. Our first stop was The Christmas Story House. We enjoyed looking around the gift shop - lots of fun items! We bought our tour tickets as well and went to the house to wait for our tour to start.

The tour was fun and very informative. After speaking, our guide gave us a few minutes to explore the house. Matt loved showing off the leg from the infamous leg lamp!

After touring the main house, we crossed the street to the museum portion of the tour. They had a lot of memorabilia from the film - it was fun to look through everything on display.

Our next stop was Progressive Field - home to the Cleveland Guardians (Indians). Also the place where the Cubs made history in 2016 - winning game 7 of the World Series.

Next stop - Lake View Cemetery to see the burial site of President James Garfield in Lake View Cemetery. I had researched this stop and was pretty excited about seeing the inside of the monument. We were saddened to see that the monument was closed and a construction fence wouldn't allow us to even get close.

Not too far from Pres. Garfield's monument, we found the John D. Rockefeller Obelisk.

Leaving the cemetery, we drove back downtown to see the World's Largest Chandelier at Playhouse Square. Bummed we couldn't see it at night, all lit up.

A bit further down the road, Matt dropped me and kids off so we could head into The Arcade Cleveland. The Arcade Cleveland opened in 1890 and was America's first indoor shopping center. Simply said, this building was jaw-dropping! Absolutely stunning!

Matt had found the World's Largest Stamp (49 feet tall) and wanted a picture. See how little Matt looks? It was huge!

Our last stop in Cleveland was Edgewater Park. The kids got out and played at one of the playgrounds and we found the Cleveland sign for a quick kid picture.

Leaving Cleveland, we started heading to our hotel in Perrysburg (2 hours). We ate at Culver's for dinner and discussed options for the evening. We were close to some shopping - including a Bass Pro Shop. I thought for sure that the kids would jump at the chance to go shopping. This was our last night on the road and we were ready for a quiet night. Surprisingly, the kids opted to skip shopping and we headed down towards the riverfront (another option we discussed).

We got to Riverside Park (that runs alongside the Maumee River) as the sun was starting to set. It was so peaceful. We walked, we sat, we swung and we really enjoyed our time together.