Every other year, my family camps at Branbury State Park in Vermont during the summer. We always have a blast hiking, swimming, reading, playing games, visiting relatives, and visiting surrounding areas. Just in case you didn’t know, Branbury State Park is BEAUTIFUL. There are two sides of the park to camp at. One of the camping sides is more rugged, while the other side is a little bit more out in the open and closest to the lake.

One of our first hikes always involves hiking up to Lana Falls. It’s a short hike, but there is a rock cliff to view the surrounding mountains and the waterfall, while always super cold, is so much fun to swim around in. This particular time we hiked, though, it had rained quite a bunch prior to arriving. Therefore, the waterfall was extremely lively and a little bit on the dangerous side to jump in.

I’m not much of a landscape photographer (I have a lot to learn), but I wanted to try a few star gazing photographs. Apparently, it was prime time to be taking photographs because we were camping during the week of the Perseid Meteor Shower. I couldn’t have asked for better weather or a better time to star gaze!! There were no clouds in the sky, we were on the lake (and I hiked up the mountain to take a few photos), we saw the Milky Way, and a ton of shooting stars. It was perfect!

The next day we went to a falls we typically go to when we visit Vermont. It’s an easy hike in and the falls is huge! It is called Moss Glen Falls. We all had a ton of fun playing around in the water and I collected a few rocks, like I normally do. Also, Ethan really enjoyed picking up rocks out of the water and throwing them back in!

Gillian, Thad, and I also went to Strafford Falls and the Elizabeth Copper Mines. The Elizabeth Copper Mines is NOT a touristy place to go to. In fact, the locals were extremely hesitant on giving us directions to the mines. It took us about two hours to find it after talking to several people who gave us the wrong directions. Anyhow, we went on this super bumpy, in the middle of no-where “road”, parked the car, and just started hiking. Eventually, we found the mines. The water was a beautiful turquoise color. The cliffs didn’t seem to be incredibly safe (a lot of loose rocks), but we were careful and jumped off the cliffs.

One of my favorite parts of the trip was our time spent at Warren Falls! OMG, it is so GORGEOUS! There were so many different places and swim holes to play around in. We even slid off the rocks into the water like a slide. It was a cold day to spend swimming, but we all still had fun.

The last night at the park, we hung around the campground and the lake. Gillian and Thad attempted some synchronized swimming in addition to simulating the Loch Ness Monster. My sister, Sarah, was busy watching over Ethan at the time, but Thad clearly missed her being in the water with him (check out the black and white photos of him pretending she was next to him towards the end of the blog post). My aunt and her boyfriend stayed with my family for a few nights. They are always a ton of fun, as you can see by the last few photos of this post as well!