Today was one of the few days I had definitive plans for the day. I had a general outline of the whole trip, but a lot of that involved seeing how far I’d get in a day. Since I was going to be near Cleveland but I really didn’t want to stay in the City, I contacted friends I knew who lived in the area and made dinner plans.

Meanwhile, I had to get there from Utica, NY.

I set my alarm for 6AM so I could get out and on the road early. I was back on the New York State Thruway, stopping at every rest area and finding geocaches that were hidden there. It was pretty much every rest area heading west across the state.

I didn’t take many pictures, though, until I got to Lake Erie. I never saw a lake this color – it really took me by surprise.

This area had a few geocaches. I was here primarily for The Barcelona Lighthouse Virtual Cache. These are caches without containers, where a finder has to locate information and send it to the cache owner for verification. Usually, there’s also a picture in the log.

It was a very pretty spot. In fact, this area of western New York and western Pennsylvania surprised me with how pretty it was. Lots of vineyards too.

The bell below also has a cache in the center of it inside, attached by a magnet. I couldn’t reach it with my hands and had to stick my phone in to knock it down. There was also one at the pretty gazebo.

I was driving between geocaches on my list when I came across the great farm below. What a creative person must live here with lots of imagination. After taking pictures, I looked on my phone and there was also a geocache here!

Moving through Erie, Pennsylvania, I found another lighthouse on the Lake. The Erie Land Lighthouse was built with local limestone and has fossils visible throughout the structure.

The Erie waterfront was nice and not at all what I was expecting. I walked around here a bit. If I hadn’t had plans, I might have stayed in this area for the night. That was a good thing, though, since the next day I didn’t get quite as far as I planned.

I also ended up taking a very long drive into Presque Island State Park to see the Admiral Perry Monument. It was totally worth it but took a lot out of my day. I’d love to come back to this area another time! Lots of great geocaches in the area too.

There was a good history lesson here on the information boards surrounding the monument.

Unfortunately, it was getting late in the day, so I traveled to Ohio, just grabbing a cache at the Welcome Center over the border. It was quite the clever cache!

The cache was high in a tree on a rope. I had to lower the cache to me. It was designed to look like a “guardrail” with either of the supports opening to hold stuff, including the log. I gave it a favorite point for being clever. I gave out a lot of favorite points this week.

I had a great dinner with friends at one of their haunts in Macedonia, the Winking Lizard. It was a great day with a lot of cache finds and some very beautiful scenery.