2025-06-10 – Great Lake City of Erie
Back on US-20, we headed west from Geneva at the top of Seneca Lake. Our first stop was Canandaigua City Pier at the head of Canandaigua Lake.
The town’s City Pier has been serving boaters, fishermen, and sightseers for over 150 years. What makes the place unique is that there are eighty or so boathouses that are situated along three long finger docks extending from the side of the pier.
A public road lined with trees and benches extends out to the end of the pier. There’s even a small park at the end of the pier. There are also marinas on each side that host hundreds of small boats.
Continuing west we departed US-20 to drive along SR-5, aka the Great Lakes Seaway Trail, for the last 50 miles or so. The road offers nice views out into Lake Erie and passes through a number of farms.
We were astonished by the number of large vineyards that lined both sides of the road. It turns out that this area is referred to as the Lake Erie American Viticulture Area. It boasts more than 31,000 acres of vineyards on about 60 grape growing farms and is the largest grape production region east of the Rocky Mountains and is second only to California.
Temperatures in the area are moderated by the waters of the Great Lakes and that makes the region well suited for growing grapes of many varieties. But 80% of these grapes, primarily concord, are processed for the juice and jelly market and sold internationally.
We pulled into Lampe Campground, a small but very nice operation run by the Erie Port Authority. It is right on the entrance channel to Erie’s harbor. We stumbled onto it when we first visited the area a few years ago. Settling in, Sandy prepared us a delicious meal of Amy’s canned tomato soup and her homemade applesauce.
2025-06-11 – Great Lake City of Erie
Presque Isle State Park isn’t actually an island but a peninsula extending out into Lake Erie from the city. It forms a wide and deep bay and harbor for the city of Erie that makes Erie an important Great Lakes shipping port.
Presque Isle is also designated a National Natural Landmark. Because of the many unique habitats the peninsula contains, it is home to a greater number of the state’s endangered, threatened, and rare species than any other area of comparable size in Pennsylvania.
We’re not here for the birds, though. We just love the scenery, especially the sandy lakeside beach areas and the lily covered wetlands. Lake Erie has the cleanest water of the Great Lakes and the views out from the beaches are beautiful. The beaches are very popular and even on this Wednesday there were lots of people on them.
But we didn’t go for the beaches either exactly. We went to bike the recently repaved bike path that runs the perimeter of the park. The thirteen mile path alternates between winding, wooded areas and open marshland. Smooth as a baby’s butt and level, the path is a joy to ride.
Back at the campground, showers and some laid back reading time were in order. Dinner was a shrimp stir-fry with whatever veggies we had on hand.
Besides grocery and other miscellaneous shopping, today’s excursion was a visit to Tom Ridge Environmental Center near the entrance to Presque Isle. Ridge moved from near Pittsburgh as an infant, was raised in Erie and Presque Isle became a favorite family haunt. Ridge is often referred to as “Erie’s favorite son”.
Opened in 2006, the center that is named in his honor was built as a premier “green building” within Pennsylvania’s state park system. Today it is a hub of environmental education and research. The partners of the Center, who lease space in the building, join together to address challenging environmental issues.
The center has excellent displays that very clearly illustrate relationships among elements in nature. Presque is a birders paradise and the Center’s “Birding 101” displays illustrate the elements birders-to-be should focus on when trying to identify birds.
There is a 75 foot tall observation tower that we found disappointing. The view from the top was mostly commercial buildings and we were hoping it would include the lake and beaches. However, the gift shop surpasses any we have seen with some really nice items for sale and a minimum of junk.
A highlight was a film we viewed in their large-format, 175 seat theater. The film, “Ripples of Plastic”, was excellent. It did a great job of telling the story of plastic contamination with special emphasis on plastics in the Great Lakes, the largest fresh water system in the world. Plastic waste, especially single use plastic items, and the chemicals associated with it, are already everywhere in our world. They contaminate our food supply, including even produce and, as a result, our own bodies. We’re only beginning to understand the consequences of plastic waste.
The film concludes that, although recycling and remediation are important, they are not the solution to the plastics pollution problem. The film makes an excellent case that the elimination of most plastics is the only long term solution.
It was pasta night at the WAWA campsite.