first days of the roadtrip

The first days of my road trip have been quite interesting. I drove for more than 10 hours yesterday, making it from Charlestown Rhode Island to Niagra Falls in Canada, and then on still until Erie, Penn. The drive was surprisingly relaxing... I stopped when I wanted to and stretched. I sang at the top of my lungs to the music blasting from my speakers. I drove through the Berkshires, through the Hudson River Valley, and through random rural lands. At one point on the trip a flock of birds were dancing in the sky. They were all flying together, perfectly in sync, turning this way and that, changing direction at a moment's notice, and getting bigger and smaller as they turned towards and away the road. Just as I passed they dove straight to the ground, and pulled up at the last moment. If I had stopped and videotaped the dance you all would have been able to understand the beauty of the dance....

I drove over to Canada to see Niagra Falls, and coming back they chose me for a "random" vehicle check. They must have thought I was a Canadian pot mule. I was worried they would unpack the whole car and then leave me to repack it. Luckily the guy seemed overwhelmed by the disorganized mass that is my stuff jammed into my trunk. He didn't even open my thule rack (thank goodness, because I would have had trouble closing it again!).
As I drove from Niagra Falls, after seeing the beauty of a full rainbow arcing over the falls, the sun set, forming a subtler, more earthy-toned rainbow in the sky, with night progressing from the top. I tried to take a picture of it, but that kind of color cannot be captured on film, and so I can only remember the image in my mind...
Erie Pennsylvania was probably not the best place to camp for my first night camping out on my own.... Erie is an appropriate name for the place, I was feeling a bit like I was in an episode of the twilight zone, driving through the completely dark towns around the city at 9 PM. The campground that was in the Lonely Planet guide for Erie was actually in a different town 30 minutes away (though the book didn't mention that), and the proprietors were annoyed at having to answer the phone, so I had to wing it, direction wise. Somehow I managed to find the place (thanks to my handy-dandy i-Phone!), and they were closed. Luckily the office of the place was also their home, and I rang up to them to come and take my $30 (for a campsite!!!!!!!), and then went to set up my tent in the dark.
I woke up throughout the night from the cold, and from the train that sounded like it was .0001 miles away from my head. But I woke up excited, proud of myself for making it through the night and doing this trip by myself!
Today I will travel through PA, OH, and end in IN, at Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore to camp and explore the beaches.