Grand Canyon, PA

Day 3, June 30 – Grand Canyon, PA

After going to Mass and having a huge breakfast with the family, we departed for the Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania.  I’ve never heard of this place before, but it’s supposed to be stunning!  We had about a 3.5 hour trip ahead of us.  We wanted to head over to our motel first and get settled in first.  I’m sort of weary of motels because you never know what you’re going to get.  We pulled into a really small motel – it almost looked like one long trailer.  We got our room and started to unload.  Our motel was really comfortable and clean!  Ahhhh…  The kids are always excited once they get to a hotel/motel.  They start jumping from one bed to another.  It makes me sort of nervous all the time.  We are a family of 8 and most hotels consider our family size a fire hazard for one room.  Shhhhhh, don’t say anything!  The kids are just fine sleeping on the floor or wherever.  Perhaps, when they are older we’ll try to get more room for all of us!  As for now, Joe & I walk in with the kids separately so we look like two families rather than one large one.

We headed towards the East View to see the Canyon.  It was really stunning! 

 

What a view it was!  We took some pictures and admired the view for a while and then decided to take one of the paths down to the bottom which is about a mile down in switchbacks.  The little kids already didn’t want to walk any further, I didn’t think we’d make it down the hill yet alone back up the hill!  I would have loved to go down to the bottom so it was a little disappointment.

We ended up going to the Pine Creek Rail Trail because it was stroller friendly.  However once we got there it didn’t seem to really take us close enough to the creek at the bottom of the canyon.  The kids started to get really tired so we headed back to the car.  They just ran a race up and down two steep mountains and they couldn’t handle a stroll on a flat trail?  I guess they were just tired…Joe & I just figured this wasn’t a place to bring little kids.  Perhaps, when they are older.  I even suggested to Joe that we could make this a getaway weekend sometime.

 

Back at our motel, there was supposedly a pond and a little “beach” with paddle boats that the kids could have fun in.  My kids seemed really excited about that.  We decided to eat dinner first, but finding a place to eat was a little challenging since the first two places were closed.  Joe found a place called the Log Cabin Inn.  I was expecting something more simple, but it ended up being a little upscale with things like filet mignon and seafood on the menu, etc…  The restaurant had a bunch of stuffed animals all over the wall.  My kids loved that!  We had a moose right above our table.  There was a stuffed bear (formerly dead) at the other end of the restaurant near the salad bar! 

As we walked in, I could sort of feel the stares of the other customers in the restaurant looking at the size of our family.  I immediately thought they were worried about the peaceful dining environment turning into chaos!  Fortunately, my kids were really well-behaved and I started counting the number of people that came up to our table to comment on our beautiful family and well-behaved kids - I counted 6.  Wow.  Though I’m thankful my children were well-behaved, I had to pause and think that perhaps the opposite behavior is what people were expecting with large families?

Dinner was fantastic.  Anne discovered the salad bar.  She’s going to do the salad bar next time, she says.  The other thing that she surprised me with was her love of my marinated mushrooms I got.  Really?  She ate all of them.  They were good, gotta find a recipe now.

Afterwards, we went back to our motel and the kids put their bathing suits on and headed to the back.  The rain came and poured down heavily as we ate dinner and luckily ended in time for my kids to enjoy the pond.  I followed everyone to the back of the motel and saw this beautiful mist above the pond and around the mountain tops. 

 

The pond was beautiful and the grounds behind the motel were so well-kept!  The kids hopped into the paddle boats and paddled all over with their dad.  Bernadette and I found some beach toys to enjoy.  It was absolutely peaceful and quiet with the sound of my kids’ laughter.  Couldn’t ask for anything more.

The evening ended with hot showers and a good sleep.  The next day we were headed over to Niagara Falls, NY!