The last day of our New York road trip concluded with a surprise in Letchworth State park.
Months ago one of the students at my gym, Riley, was discussing joining me on my travels with his girlfriend, Jenny. Since he was already planning to propose to her but didn't know how to sneak a photographer in to wherever it was going to happen, he decided this was the perfect opportunity since I always have my cameras and that wouldn't be suspicious.
We were originally going to do this in Acadia Maine but circumstances caused us to switch travel plans to western New York. There are so many amazing things to see, especially waterfalls, surely we could find a good spot to do it. Because the American side of Niagara falls is less spectacular of a view he chose not to do it there. In retrospect, doing it on the maid of the mists boat would have been wild in that wind storm but he might have dropped the ring!
Another thought was to do it here at the Eternal Flame falls. This cool hike is 45 minutes round trip if you go at a gentle pace. A natural Gas leak in an alcove of the water fall leads to a flame being eternal lit. Oh the symbolism! The romance! ....
Turns out it's the size of a miniature pizza oven and the waterfall had completely dried up by the time we arrived.
That situation aside, this is a fun little spot that makes for a quick hike. It's kind of in the middle of nowhere so the novelty may not out weigh the distance depending on your route. I also have to wonder how one walks through the stream bed when it's flowing...
Cool spot, but not cool enough for a proper proposal.
Luckily I'm always prepared. Letchworth state park is a place I would like to explore more next time. With it's 17 mile length and extensive hiking trails we only scratched the surface. We hiked to the upper falls, very cool, but the middle falls are amazing. Near the visitor center is inspiration point where you can overlook both falls head on.
The Glen Iris Inn overlooks the middle falls and is home to an awesome restaurant. So, the middle falls is where he decided to do it. We set her up like we were doing a quick photo shoot for the blog, this way I could play with the lighting. Truth is, I took a bunch of photos of them the whole trip to give them as a gift. He posed for a few with her, ring box in hand, and then...
Of course she said yes. Even a couple onlookers started cheering, it was cute. Also, very convenient that we could have lunch only feet away at the inn! Sure there was a 6 hour car ride left to get home [thanks New York traffic] but to me this was really the finale to our 4 day road trip.
Turns out, she thought he was going to do it on the trip, but then changed her mind because it was the last day and we were already done at Niagara Falls. cue the evil laughter, our scheming mostly worked!
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