Maple Weekend

This weekend and next head out to celebrate Maple Weekend. It's a lot of fun visiting the local sugaring houses and seeing how maple syrup is made. There are hundreds of places to choose from all over the state. Dates are March 20-21, 27-28 10am-4pm each day. For more info. see http://www.mapleweekend.com/

More Maple Fun

Beaver Meadow Audubon Center will be having a Maple Harvest Festival March 20-21 from 9am-4pm daily. Enjoy seeing maple sugar made the way Native Americans did, taste sugar on snow, take a nature walk, and enjoy pancake breakfast.

Admission is $7 adults, $5 children 12 and under, under 3 free. Admission includes pancake breakfast.

1610 Welch Road, North Java 1-800-377-1520.

Also this weekend

The New York State Regional Park Interpretive Programs office (Niagara region) will offer Maple sugaring 101 at Evangola State Park Saturday March 20 from 2-4pm. It is a hands-on outdoor presentation. Must pre-register 716-826-8895

New website

I've been busy updating my new website www.westernnewyorkexplorersguide.com It's still a work in progress, but check it out. I still have to add photos and play around with the layout, but all the information is there. Plus I have to figure out all this SEO stuff, and put in meta tags and such.

My old website (http://explorewny.home.att.net) is no longer functional. ATT is doing some updates with their internet services and decided not to support the free webpages anymore.

Feel free to e-mail me any comments about the blog or website explorewny@att.net

I'm also on Facebook as WNY Explorer's Guide and on Twitter as www.twitter.com@WNYEG

Sledding at Chestnut Ridge Park

This past Saturday we headed to Chestnut Ridge Park in Orchard Park to go sledding with my youngest son's Cub Scout Pack. Even though only a few families showed up, we had a great time. It wasn't too crowded so the kids could go down the hill multiple times. My daughter even convinced me to go down the hill a couple times...going down was fine, it was walking back up that was a pain!

One of the other families brought a wooden toboggan, since the newly refurbished toboggan chutes were open. The kids and my husband tried it out. I would have tried it out, but alas, they closed the chutes at 4:00 and we ran out of time. Maybe next time. We brought hot cocoa and snacks, but they also have a concession stand in the large casino building on the top of the hill.

Chestnut Ridge Park, 6121 Chestnut Ridge, Orchard Park 716-662-3290