THE FATHER BLOG

Our journey to the Grand Canyon of the East was a nice trip. The park itself is beautiful and well maintained. None of the trails are hard/strenuous, so it wasn’t the typical hike that Emily and I usually do together but we still very much enjoyed it. The main trails by the 3 waterfalls simply run along the service road and all the parking lots. Many people just park their cars, walk a hundred yards, take a picture, and get back into the car and drive to the next overlook or waterfall parking lot.

We found once you got past the falls, the trail gets way less crowded because it’s not near the road or parking lots. This was the part we enjoyed the most. Overall, a very nice and doable State Park for people of any fitness level to enjoy. I think our next hiking trip we both want to challenge ourselves again though!

I could just include this stop on our trip into one post but it truly deserves it’s own. The Corning Museum of Glass is a pretty cool place to visit if you find yourself in that area of NY state someday.

On a previous vacation (long story about getting stranded in Dallas for a couple days) we got hooked on watching the Netflix glass blowing show “Blown Away”.

Emily has always been fascinated with the show especially and since we were passing directly through Corning, NY on our way to some hiking, it seemed like the perfect stop and we spent one night there. We obviously visited the museum, but the highlight was scheduling Emily some time with one of the master glass blowers to make a vase. Not only did she have the time of her life doing this, we were both amazed on how much they actually let her do on her own! Though the master glass blower was there to assist and guide, he allowed her to do probably 75% of the glass making on her own.

Let’s just say the experience is a 10 out of 10! I didn’t want to be responsible for breaking the vase so they also allow you to have them ship it home…..we can’t wait to see the final product which should be here sometime this week!

Getting some work done today among other things to prepare for the long 4 day weekend of fun. Remember this: when the end of life arrives, no one has ever said they wished they worked more! Enjoy!