New York -Stony Brook State Park

We thought we were going to stay two days in Letchworth, but we decided to move on and on the way, we found little Stony Brook State Park (compared to Letchworth, it's tiny!).  It's hidden away, off the main path, but we were looking for something to do. I mean, why would you want to 'rest' on vacation? :) 

Weird huh?  All the yellow around the rocks is actually pointing out the steps of what used to be the swimming pool at Stony Brook.  Unfortunately due to budget cuts, they had to close the pools in many of the State Parks.  It is such a shame really that we cannot keep our State Parks open because of all the useless spending, but that's a whole other story.

It really is a beautiful park, even sans the swimming pool.  You can literally walk by the water almost the entire way and you are quite a ways down in the Gorge.

Everything is made out of rock here!

Watching the water

My wonderful husband going off the beaten path again...

Stony Brook was full of water falls....EVERYWHERE.  It seemed that every turn we took, there was another water fall.  Such beauty!

One of the bigger water falls.  

Jacob wanted to walk in the stream (and it was pretty hot that day) so he got to cool off a bit.

Another water fall (nope, not the same one as above!)  They are just so pretty!

Oh look...a water fall!

'The Boys' out on a ledge looking down at the river below.

So...the Gorge Trail not a problem and it was beautiful walking in the cool (literally cool) Gorge.  It was a few steps up, but nothing entirely crazy.  "Somebody" who will remain nameless, wanted to take the East Rim trail back because he wanted to see a different view of the park.  Thinking, 'Oh, it can't be 'that' bad' we all just went on along.  Then it came to a point where it was either me that was going to die or 'said person' from above was going to bite it.  There was NOOO fun about it at this point.  This trail went UP, not just  up, UP. Straight UP!  What were we thinking?!?  We knew the walls were high in the Gorge, but not like THAT!  And it wasn't just you go up and then walk along the trail either. This baby was up and down, up and down. I'm all for hiking, but climbing is another story, especially when it is not gentle climbing.  Anywho, we did get to see this gorgeous view of Western New York through the trees and that kind of made it worth the 'want to kill someone' climb :)

Jason at the end of the trail trying to be funny after taking us on the 'Death March'! Uh no.... ; )