I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again — Adventuring is my favorite pastime. Exploring new places and places I’ve been before is always fun. You get to be in a new environment than the one you’re used to seeing day in and day out. Now, I’ve been to Erie several times in my life. But, ever since Chris and I started dating and made it a yearly thing to visit even just for a day, we’ve tried to do something new each time. But we mostly stick to our general plans each year. T
his year, we planned a weekend trip with our friends, Evan and Kelly, in August, so we wanted to explore Downtown Erie since that is where our hotel is located. We made the plan to drive there after our time in Presque Isle and find out where our hotel is and just explore a bit.
We began the day with a quick breakfast close to home at Perkins. I can’t say I’ve ever had a bad meal there. Not too expensive either. Then, we made the trek up to Erie. Fun fact: I checked the weather beforehand and the radar had rain in all of Pennsylvania except Erie… which was great news for us. We didn’t actually hit any of it and it was an easy drive. Well… for him at least. I’ve never done any highway driving since I got my license last year. So we decided since from Pittsburgh to Erie is a completely straight shot up I-79, I could do some highway driving….
It was terrifying. I thought it would be way easier but I was on the white knuckle express. Going 70 wasn’t something I was comfortable with, but I did it.
Once Chris took over and we got there (much quicker with him driving, might I add), we booked it to the beach and just relaxed for a bit. He also enjoys being knocked over by waves so I joined him until I got water in my eyes and then I went to dry off… lol. After about 2 hours of sun(burn), we went to a pizza place that has become a favorite of ours, located just outside of Presque Isle, Stevo’s Pizza.
After we got our stomachs filled, we went to find our hotel. As you know, we are coffee shop fanatics. Chris found one online called Ember + Forge and we decided to park and make the trek through the city to find it. It was so good I got an iced chai while we sat inside and I got another to go. Now, the city was chaos. We later found out that the following day, they had their Roar on the Shore Bike Weekend. So, so many streets were blocked off for set up, which drove us nuts since the GPS didn’t account for that… ugh. But we made it.
Next, we went to see the Bicentennial Tower, which is apparently a famous landmark in Erie. It was crazy beautiful. It was only $8 to get us both in and up to the top. We could see all of Downtown Erie and the length of Presque Isle, which was just wild. The wind was insane though.
After such a breathtaking experience, we went back to Presque Isle and got a little walk in before heading to Tim Horton’s, the annual trip since there are none back home, and made the long journey home. Overall, as usual, it was a great day and we got very lucky with the weather. I’m so excited for our weekend in a couple of weeks! Stay tuned for that post and photos as well!
I included my photos from the trip below!
If you’d like to see more of my work, visit my Flickr page!
Abigail McNatt Photography 