Big Sis in the US

My Big Sister came to town and that means more travel adventures! It has been 4 years since I have seen Verena. She last visited in 2018 when we went on an adventure to Maine. This time she was here just in time to do some fall exploration and celebrate Halloween. Verena is always up for exploring and since we are terrible together at making a plan that meant that the week together was chaos but filled with so many different places to go and things to do.

One of the first places we decided to explore was Delphi Falls. Last time Verena was here the park had yet to be open. This time it was open, and we could take out her drone and fly above the falls. It was pretty impressive to see from the vantage point of the drone. We also went to Old Fly Marsh and explored walking in the woods and then flying with the drone there. We walked at camp and enjoyed the fact that the fall leaves were spectacular. Verena and I also carved a pumpkin and celebrated her birthday with the family. 

Another day we drove down to Cooperstown. I usually only go there to visit Howe Caverns and the Baseball Hall of Fame. This time we went to a few different museums. I had never been to any of them. We also checked out two different state parks during the day. Once more we took out the drone and flew it around. The fall leaves were great. We drove around the lake in Cooperstown and enjoyed coffee and pastries at a local shop. 

We took another day to drive out to Watkin's Glenn. We took Red with us. We hiked the inner glen trail first. Verena has never seen the glen. It is always one of my favorite places to visit in the fall. It is so beautiful no matter what time of year but there is something special about seeing it with the leaves changing and falling. The falls still were flowing as we climbed. We walked one of the upper trails on the way back and this was nice as well. 

Another day had us driving down to Pennsylvania where we hiked Ricketts Glenn State Park. This park was pretty incredible. It is also a very hard hike in places. You are scrambling over rocks and down some step and oddly shaped stairs. But it was all very much worth it because we got to see 17 different waterfalls. There were even more that we could have hiked but we were running out of daylight. We drove down to see Justin as well. It was so nice to have the three of us together. 

After a very late-night driving back to New York we got back in the car and drove to Salem Massachusetts. I have done this drive many times and it is long. I always get really tired driving it and having so little sleep the night before made it worse. Thankfully Verena can drive and drove half the way for me. Parking in Salem was worse than I have seen it before. We did manage to snag a spot on the outskirts of the city.

Salem in October, especially right before Halloween, is very special and very busy. There are so many people there and the streets are crowded. You have to wait in long lines to go in any shop and most restaurants take hours to get into. We wandered the streets and I showed Verena some of the historical sights. She also had us go on some random adventures to find things she saw online. We also did a ghost walking tour at night. Even though I have been to Salem many times it is still a lot of fun. There were lots of Halloween decorations and several houses had amazing decorations. 

We spent the night in Massachusetts, outside of Salem. We were both tired from all the travel. Verena had to be to the airport, and I decided to drive her. I have never driven to JFK. We broke up the drive with a stop at Holy Land USA. I stopped there earlier in the year but had not explored as much. This time we walked all over the park. It's pretty neat but falling apart and there are some spots that have graffiti. After walking there, we drove down to the city. I was pretty happy the drive went better than I expected. 

Saying goodbye is always hard. The staff at the terminal at JFK were nice and gave us time to say goodbye. I love having Verena home and we do so much while she is here. While I was certainly tired, I did not want my time with her to come to an end. I hope we can visit each other sooner than 4 years this next time. I love having someone who enjoys chasing waterfalls as much as I do with me. Visits with my Big Sis are certainly very special and go by too fast.