Presque Isle State Park and Lake Erie

It was a pretty significant departure from my modus operandi to head into Erie to explore Presque Isle State Park and the Lake Erie beaches...which comprise the state's only coastline. 

The words "Presque Isle" in French mean "Almost Island." It's a pretty common French place name for a peninsula.  And as an "almost island," the trails at Presque isle are none too impressive.

But woods and trails are not primarily what this park is about.  It's about beaches, miles of beaches along a freshwater inland sea.  The Great Lakes have a distinctive smell that I recall from childhood: light, fresh, pleasant and, well, lake-like. 

Lake Erie is the shallowest and the most turbulent of the Great Lakes.  There might be as many as 2,000 ships beneath these waters, where mists and storms rise quickly.  Some of those shipwrecks date back to the War of 1812.

Ring-billed gulls... I saw plenty of birds at Presque Isle but nothing rare or new to me.  Lots of red-winged blackbirds.

It's a pleasant enough park, but very heavily used by joggers, and cyclists, and fishers, and in the summer, beach-goers.  Presque Isle is just outside the city limits of Erie--the fifth biggest city in the Commonwealth--a rough-and-tumble place in a liminal space between the Midwest and the East.  Presque Isle actually feels to me like a really big city park with swimming beaches.

You've got the lakeside portion of the park, with all the beaches, and then you've got the bayside portion of the park, which looks across the water to the city.  There are also lots of lagoons and estuaries that the fishers and birders frequent.

Someone told me a few weeks ago that Erie, Pennsylvania, has the poorest zip code in the nation.  I didn't believe it.  But a little digging revealed that in 2021, at least, the 16501 zip code for central Erie had the lowest median income in the country--about $10,000 per household.  

This is the monument to Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry.  "Commodore Perry" was in his early 30s when he led the U.S. Navy to victory in sea battle against the British during the War of 1812--when they attempted to retake their former American colonies.  "Don't Give Up the Ship" was the banner flying over his boat, which was sunk in battle.   

All in all, a pleasant trip in an unlikely destination.  I had to take a check to the Amishman who's adding some bedrooms to my house up north.  I intended to hike after dropping off the check, but the novelty of Lake Erie called to me.