New York

The final two days of this trip found us scooting along Lake Erie and the NY-Pennsylvania border. We found the town of Lorain, OH bursting with color right on the shores of the lake. Lake Chautauqua has the most elegant rest stop in the entire country! We wanted to pitch our tent right there. American painter Frederic Church's restored home, Olana, overlooking the Hudson River was another beautiful place where we could have easily spent the night. I enjoyed MOST of the drive, but there was this tiny little part of highway, a blue one, coming downhill over a bridge into Cleveland where this guy in boots and a helmet was standing in the middle of my lane. He aimed a gun at me and BLAM! With his speed gun back in the holster, he waved me over and I almost cried. You see, my children often say I impede the 'normal' flow of traffic with my adherence to posted speed limits. So I was aghast that I actually had exceeded 35mph. I was so miserable, I almost cried. I did not tell the officer that my tombstone is supposed to read She never got a ticket, but that is what I was thinking; it was a first for me. Happily, he felt sorry for me and gave me a warning and sent me on my way to New York. I did not ask him if I could take his picture for the blog, but that would have been cool, huh?