A Day at the Presque Isle Beach, Erie, PA

7:02

Kayaking in Presque Isle Lagoons

Perry Monument on Presque Isle Bay

Sun Bathing Turtles in Lagoon

Beach at Presque Isle

The Old Man and the Sea

Heading in for a beer and sandwich

It's another clear morning, not a cloud in the sky, as the sun fills our living room with light.  I was up around 6:40, a warm glow of orange on the shoreline.  It's 54 degrees, getting up into the high 70's later, a nice day, with rain and cooler weather coming in tomorrow.  I am off to Bemus for breakfast with the boys at 8:00.

Yesterday, we had another adventure, for us, as we put the kayaks on the roof of our SUV and drove to Presque Isle in Erie, PA, less than an hour drive.  We got their around 9:45, a comfortable time, and went right to the lagoons, where it's easy to launch a kayak.  We followed narrow paths through the lagoon, much different from what the maps suggested,  Most of the width of the lagoons was taken over by grasses, water lilies, and such so that what I thought was a wide open waterway ended up being a narrow pathway.  We stayed inland for about an hour and a half, but it got tiresome and repetitious, little change in scenery, so we back tracked, and ended up paddling out to the bay, across from the city of Erie, just beyond the Oliver Hazard Perry monument.  The wind was much stronger out on the open bay though not too difficult for paddling.  We stayed in the water for about two hours.  When we took our kayak out, another couple was hauling their boats in as well, about our age.  He works for LL Bean in Pittsburgh, was very talkative, and talkied enthusiastically about kayaking the river in downtown Pittsburgh, past the stadiums and buildings.  Sounds like fun.

After our paddle, we drove around the peninsula looking for a good beach, though there are many and all are about the same.  We ended up parking at Pine Tree, rock pile #40, an easy access.  We hauled out chairs, blankets, towels, picnic lunch, cooler and books, and spent the afternoon on the beach, a novelty for us the past few years.  The last time I remember laying on a sand beach, enjoying the sun, was in Gocek, Turkey, back in 2009,   And we have not been to Florida since Beth and Rami moved and that was at least five years ago.  As I may have mentioned before, the beaches at Presque Isle are some of the finest I have seen, including Hawaii.  Miles of sand, clear water,  sea grass, sandy bottoms when you swim, no rocks, no driftwood, an amazingly manicured beach.  Some of the beaches have pavilions, some volleyball courts, some just sand and water.  We had lunch, took a couple of walks, and lay in the sun, enjoying the beach and swimming, at least three different times, to the amazement, or so it would seem, of the few others on the beach, mostly retirees like us. We kept expecting salt water when we dove in, always a surprise to see it wasn't.  We didn't leave till about 4:30 when traffic and action was picking up, as more and more people were walking, biking, and coming to the beach as work was over, the beach was cooling.  We enjoyed it so much we plan on coming back more often, for a later afternoon picnic, to watch the sun set and in other seasons, especially the winter, when the water is rough and gray.

We drove home via #5, through old downtown Erie, watching the neighborhoods change, some great houses, mostly on the near west side of Erie, then along the coast of Lake Erie, as far as North East, where we stopped at the Freeport restaurant, for a beer and a sandwich, fish and roast beef respectively, before heading inland, through North East, home of Mercyhurst College, to RT 426, and home though Findley Lake and Sherman, our old route from Ohio.  It was a great day at the beach.