Sunday May 25
The reason for the long drive on Saturday was to get us into Pa to visit the remainder of the parks I haven’t visited.
The Pennsylvania Parks & Forests Foundation sells a passport book that contains all 124 state parks and 20 state forests with a description and a place for a park stamp. When you visit a park you obtain a stamp. If you visit after the park office is closed many of the parks will have a sticker with the stamp in an outdoor kiosk.
Since 2023 I have been traveling to the PA State Parks and Forests in an effort to visit all 124 parks and 20 Forests. When we left on our trip I had just 16 more parks to visit.
So today was Park extravaganza day.
We went to Moraine which is fairly large with a north and south side. It has a 7 mile bike path.
Then onto Jennings close by.
We hiked at Jennings on part on North Country Trail. Neither of us have heard of this trail. Turns out it is the longest in the national trail system stretching 4,800 miles across eight states from North Dakota to Vermont. Who knew?!
The next park was McConnells Mill.
They had an event going on and it was quite crowded.
The next park was about an hour south was Racoon Creek about 30 miles from Pittsburgh. I want to return there and try their mountain biking trails. They have camping and cabins.
Hillman State Park was 5 miles away. It appeared to had been state game lands and doesn’t have much “park” or amenities, just 3600 acres of wild lands.
Then we drove to Pittsburgh and visited the Point State Park. We strolled around the park and walked into town to Condado Tacos.
And the extravaganza continued. We drove 70 miles south to Ohiopyle State Park.
Pennsylvania had recently gotten a lot of rain and the Youghiogheny River was looking violent.
It was a long day with visits to so many parks..and I had only 1 park left to visit to complete my passport. We drove east towards that last park near York and got tired. So we found the Maryland Mason Dixon welcome center off of route 15 in Emmitsburg, MD. It was near Gettysburg. We spent the night there.
We lucked out. It was quiet, felt safe, had clean restrooms and a wonderful gentleman worked there offering brochures and info on Maryland.