Cross-Country Vacation 2023

  We started the day with a continental breakfast at the Microtel Inn and Suites.  (Click on any photo to enlarge) Continental Breakfast Today's plan is to drive 7 hours, 402 miles and visit two interesting places along the way. We drove 2.5 hours to the Richmond Aquaduct Ruins and went birding on the Byron Lapp Trail. Added two birds to the checklist, Rusty Blackbird and Rough-winged Sparrow. A Google Maps glitch took us to the near end of the trail instead of the start; a 3 mile hike became 0.4 miles. The water was still high from Spring waters so we were unable to complete a loop hike we had planned. Richmond Aquaduct Ruins The Richmond Aquaduct Ruins is another special place that we visited. I created a separate page with more details and photos. Visit  https://travelingvtjs.blogspot.com/p/richmond-aqueduct-ruins.html We backtracked a bit to eat lunch at Potters Farm to Fork . Potters Farm to Fork After lunch we headed to Niagara Falls, another 2.5 hour drive. It wa...

Day 51 - Today's plan is to drive 311 miles in 6.5 hours. (Click on any photo to enlarge) We started our day at Country Side Family Diner which was right across the street from the Big Horse Inn & Suites. It was a nice country style diner with the normal breakfast choices. After, we headed towards Funks Grove Nature Preserve. Along the way we found Emiquon National Wildlife Refuge on the Illinois River. This was an unplanned stop so we only spent 40 minutes here. This was a special place and a separate page will be created . To see more go to https://travelingvtjs.blogspot.com/p/emiquon-national-wildlife-refuge.html The next stop turned into a joke. I was searching for an nature preserve on Rte 66 when we drove past Funks Grove Maple Sirup . I have a way of sniffing out maple, so the joke was that this was my original destination. It wasn't, but we did turn around at the nature preserve and head back. They had never heard of Maple Creemee's so I showed ...