Travel, Hiking and Camping

This post was a long time coming. Somehow in the chaos of recent events I was not able to write any posts. So here goes Our road trip to the west cost and our experience. Our wanderlust led us all the from Atlantic ocean to Pacific Ocean during the week of Labor Day of 2015. We had made all our booking well in advance, probably 5 months before the trip. This saved us a lot of money as we are budget travelers. We flew from PA to Las Vegas where we had booked a car for rent for the next one week. Soon after we landed we drove all the way to Grand Canyons National Park with a stop at Hover dam.

Location : Big meadows Campground Shenandoah National Park, VA Website : http://www.nps.gov/shen/index.htm Visited : 17 - 19 July 2015 Camping in Shenandoah National Park requires prior booking during summer season, even for a regular weekend. You can reserve campsites here . So today I will take you through our camping experience in Shenandoah National Park. There are several campgrounds available in Shenandoah National Park,  we came at Big Meadows Campground. Day 1: Friday We reached our campground at 8.15 in the night and the drive on the skyline drive was breath taking. As there was a possibility of scattered thunderstorms, the clouds were passing by and oh boy! It was fantastic. Due to the passing clouds and the sunlight peeking through there was a yellow hue all around it was truly a sight for sore eyes. As we reached the camp ground we registered at the front office and headed to out campsite No.111 on B loop. We set up our tent and canopy and had dinner by the

Location : McConnells Mills State Park 2697 McConnells Mill Rd, Portersville, PA 16051 GPS : 40.937650, -80.178101 Visited : 11 July 2015 We visited McConnells Mills state park to hike the Kildoo trail. We got off I-79 and drove along Cheeseman road, past breakneck campground. There is sign board saying that the road closes ahead. As there was no parking available we drove past the sign and came across a parking lot. Either you can park here and walk down to the foot bridge or drive a little further to park near the breakneck bridge. We were told by a fellow hiker that we can driver further down the road to Eckert Bridge. As the roads were bad we decided to walk down to the Eckert Bridge instead.

Location : Cuyahoga Valley National Park, OH GPS co-ordinates  (Trail Head):  Latitude: 41.271037 | Longitude: -81.555912 Trail : Stanford Trail Distance : 1.7 miles Website : http://www.nps.gov/cuva/planyourvisit/hiking.htm Visited : 20 Jun 2015 There are several trails in Cuyahoga National Park. The one which we hiked was Stanford Trail to reach Brandywine Falls.

Location : Sigel, PA 15860 Website : http://www.fs.usda.gov/recarea/allegheny/recreation/recarea/?recid=6103&actid=33 Visited : May 29 2015 - May 30 2015 Loleta Recreational campgrounds is located on the southern part of Allegheny National forest. Our plan was to camp here for 2 nights and 3 days. But thunder storm dampened our plan and we had to cut short our camping for 1 night and 2 days.

Location : Shawnee state park  132 State Park Rd, Schellsburgh, PA 15559 Website :  http://www.dcnr.state.pa.us/stateparks/findapark/shawnee/#camping Visited : May 22 2015 - May 24 2015 We camped at Shawnee State Park during the Memorial day weekend. If you are planning for camping (tent or camper) during holiday weekends, I would highly suggest you to book   well ahead of time. It will be almost impossible to get reservation at the last moment. You may need to reserver 2 nights minimum during holiday weekends.  You can make reservations here .  The park is easy to locate with the GPS navigation. It is just off the highway 70/ 76