We woke up to the worst Walmart parking we’ve ever seen:

We drove a few blocks to Fort Stanwix National Monument:

The fort is a recreation of the fort built by the British for the French and Indian War.  It was “sold” by NPS to the town as an attempt to revitalize downtown.  Sixteen acres of downtown were demolished to make way for the fort:

In the original fort, there was a Ravelin between the gate and the Ace Hardware:

The fort was used by American forces in the Revolutionary War.  Camp followers had to live outside the fort because the fort was too small to accommodate them:

After finishing our visit, we drove southeast to get home.  See the alternating yellow line on the trip map for today’s drive.

This is probably our last summer trip as a family, as M will be graduating high school this spring.  I’m glad we’ve had the opportunity to experience all these trips together!

It wasn’t the quietest night at this truck stop outside of Boulder.  It wasn’t quite clear what the signs were referring to, as there were dozens of trucks parked here:

We drove over to Niagara Falls.  We’ve never been here before, so we wanted to see what all fuss was about:

The falls were pretty impressive:

We continued east across upstate New York:

We visited Women’s Rights National Historical Park, site of the first women’s rights convention in 1848:

The church in which the convention was held:

We continued east to overnight at the Walmart of Rome, New York.  See the alternating yellow line on the trip map for today’s drive.