Letchworth State Park

  We spent most of the day hiking through the park. It's absolutely beautiful. After walking up and down the river trail, someone got the bright idea to hike to "the trout pond", without mentioning it meant walking another 5 miles or so.  We passed by some of the biggest piles of bear poo I've ever seen(right next to shredded hornets' nests). One of us got a bit grumpy and tired, and a bit worried we would be lost forever. Never fear, I am married to Marco Polo/ Daniel Boone, who reassured me that if we really were lost, he would not to eat me, no matter how starved he was.

Hiking to the elusive Trout Pond

Five + miles for this?

Inspiration Point

Rusty was the most well behaved dog there

Mary Jemison

The Native Americans were the ones devastating the frontier?

Jemison cabin and Seneca Council cabin

Mary Jemison was born in 1743.  Her family "squatted" on territory of the Iroquois Confederacy. When she was a teen, her family was killed and she was kidnapped by Shawnees, then given to the Senecas. She married a Delaware and had a son. After he died, she married a Seneca and had six more children. By 1823, the Seneca tribe had sold most of their land, except for a couple acres (here at the park) reserved for the "White Woman of the Genesee". She  later decided to move to the Buffalo Creek reservation, where she lived the rest of her life.  Her remains were later moved to the park.
  One of my favorite stories as a kid was Indian Captive-the Story of Mary Jemison, by Lois Lenski.
If you google her name, you can even read Jemison's own narrative (told when she was 80) of her life. It's fascinating.

On our way home, an old man fell asleep while driving, crossed into our lane, then swerved back toward us and rolled his car.  Ken stayed so cool, while we were freaking out, and managed to move out of his way as he rolled right by my window. I called 911; we were so worried he'd be dead in the car, or ejected out of it. Miraculously, he got out as Ken got to him, and he seemed unhurt.