Vicarious Rocky

Evangola State Park is on the NY State budget's chopping block. It's one of those places that inspires and depresses you all at the same time. I get a sense that it might have been a tourist destination at one point, but now no one bothers to pay the $6 a person to access a remote, somewhat rocky beach that is exactly an hour away from everywhere you may have heard of in Western NY.

That said, we LOVED it! Because, well, we Lewis' and our adopted international Au pair are easy going, glass-half-full summer folk.

Here we are doing the old fashioned thing where you pose next to the adored vehicle. And the party van is much adored:



Here is my son playing near the frightening, gorgeous, raw surf. It was 5 days after this that a 5-yr-old boy drown in similar waves at a Lake Huron beach. That child, like mine, was picking up rocks and throwing them in. But the boy that died ventured in up to his knees. I am thankful for my cautious boy.



For contrast, the next day it was completely still water as seen here. I can see why this is not a developed tourist area if only because the beaches are so exposed to the treachery of lake Erie -- no bays or sandbars in sight.



This is Holly and I doing what we do best together -- laughing.



And here are my boys looking gorgeous.