We made it home.

I’ll have more to say about it later but the trip overall was a massive success, everyone was healthy and happy throughout, the bus ran beautifully, and I feel like the mission was accomplished; we are a closer family for it.

Now that we are back, I still can’t sit around! Today we went up to a special outdoor area to us, called, Bilgers Rocks. The rock made up of brittle sandstone is much more exposed here than in other areas. Because of this, a natural playground is formed amongst giant boulders and stone walls. The kids like to get lost in the maze, of what looks like mini slot canyons. An artist visited the area in the 1920s and carved beautiful sculptures into the rock that can still be enjoyed today.

Every summer as we pull in to Pennsylvania, I get an overwhelming feeling of happiness. Not because the trip is ending, on the contrary, I could keep going another three months in utter bliss. As much as I love traveling, I especially love traveling to Pennsylvania. I choose to live here because it’s the most underrated state for me. Here the forests and rivers are endless, you do not need to seek out or venture far to find gorgeous serine nature. In Pennsylvania the nature stretches so endlessly you do not need to compete with anyone for your nature. As grand and spectacular as other states are, you can never so quickly find nature to get lost in as you can here. I am surrounded in every direction by free public land and I’m not trading that for anything.

After our hike, we like to stop at a small roadside attraction called Doolittle’s Dinosaurs. It’s a completely random mix of old train cars, animatronic dinosaurs, mini golf, strange odds and ends, and a brewery. A sort of central Pennsylvania Wall Drug.

The day before, I took the boys to the State Fair while Amy and Maple took a day to rest. Whatever that is.