Oswego Lighthouse

There is a small old lighthouse located in Oswego, NY on the shores of Lake Ontario. I, of course, had no idea it existed until yesterday. The only way to reach it (other than I suppose by some difficult boating situation) is along a series of deteriorating rocks that make up the harbor. In the winter, this path is pretty much impassible, and it is also precarious anytime the weather is poor.

(Winter)

(Stormy Weather)

But in the summer months, it clears up and you can carefully make the trek in less than an hour.

This past weekend, John Paul and I headed up to Syracuse, NY. Syracuse is John Paul's hometown, and most of his best friends and a lot of his family still live there. We try to take weekend trips as often as possible since it's only about 2 hours away. John Paul is playing guitar for a worship event next weekend and had to be up this weekend for practice, so I tagged along. It was a great weekend as usual. I feel most myself in Syracuse for some reason.

We were staying with John Paul's best friend Joey and his family, as usual. As requested by Joey's dad for Father's day, we headed up to Oswego. We ate lunch at a little lake-side restaurant where I could see a lighthouse in the distance. Mr. B proceeded to take us there after lunch. After driving down a road that I would have never traversed without a local (it looked off-limits, lots of no trespassing signs and barbed wire passing a power plant) we arrived at an almost hidden lot that already had a few cars in it. From there you could see the lighthouse out in the water with a long trail of rocks leading to it. I call them rocks, but they were manmade, left from a harbor. The harbor is pretty intact at first, you can still see places to tie off large boats and people are fishing off the side. From there you can start walking towards the lighthouse. The path deteriorates slowly, making the way more and more like a rock climb/hike and less like following a smooth sidewalk. Unfortunately, we didn't have time to make the trek to the lighthouse, but we went about halfway.

There is nothing more fun to me than being outside in beautiful weather. Even more so with an activity or goal. I love hiking and historical sites so I was very enthusiastic about this excursion. I absolutely want to go back and take on the "harder" last part of the hike and see the lighthouse up close. (There will definitely be a Part 2 to this post once I get John Paul to take me back).

(How the path looks on a sunny day)

I like to travel, and I like history. I often set my traveling sights high (Europe, Asia, etc) and those places are amazing and on the list. But I've realized that most every area of the country, every little small town, has some interesting local history or spot. Mr. B had an atlas out in the car and was pointing out all the cool "spots" within a 3 hour radius of Syracuse in New York. I obviously am not from here and had no idea these places existed, but isn't that the same wherever you go? We could take countless weekend trips within just a few hours of Buffalo and see some beautiful and interesting things. Every state in the U.S. is so different and unique and full of history and experiences. And it's a heck of a lot cheaper than flying overseas. It's become my new goal to see all there is to see within the states and have fun taking lots of weekend travels to beautiful places.

Summer time in New York is so beautiful and I hope it's full of trips like this.