Another nice breakfast, this time out on the front porch. Then we packed up and hit the road to
continue west. We thought we might stop at our favorite outlet store, Woolrich
outdoor clothes, but somehow missed the turn.
No warm shopping this time. We drove across northern Pennsylvania on
I-80 to Ohio, enjoying the Allegheny Mountains with all the tress.
It took about six hours to drive to the Cleveland area where
we had planned to go to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. But we arrived a little
later than we planned and fighting rush hour traffic to go into the city didn’t
really sound good, especially for a relatively brief visit to the Hall of Fame.
So, we both agreed that a better idea would be to extend our visit the only National
Park in Ohio: The Cuyahoga Valley National Park. We had planned on several hours there the
next morning but we got excited about seeing more of it today.
This is quite a unique park, with much of it surrounded by
the southern suburbs of Cleveland. The
two features of the park are the Cuyahoga River and the remnants of the Ohio
Erie Canal. We stopped the visitor center and got recommendations from the park
ranger for a couple doable walks for us to take there in the late
afternoon. The first walk was to the Everette
covered bridge across a small stream. It
was typical of the kinds of covered bridges that we had seen on this trip and
before.
On the way back to the car, Patti made a great discovery, ripe wild raspberries. This always puts a smile on her face. She was eating them as fast as she could pick them. What a treat!
Then we went for a walk on the old towpath from the canal,
which had been turned into a 33-mile trail, of which we walked about 3 or 4
miles. This beautiful tree-covered trail
was being well used. Although it didn’t
feel crowded, there were many people walking and biking on this late Saturday
afternoon.
Before this land had been set aside as a national park, some
of it was very polluted and built up.
The area that we walked along had been a scrap yard. Park Service cleaned it up but before they had
even completed it, a pair of beaver moved in and dammed up the stream flooding
he are turning it into a wonderful pond and bog. A lovely boardwalk crossed this area.
As we walked on the boardwalk, we began to spot Great Blue
Herons. The first was some distance away
but then there was one only about 30 feet away.
We watched it for a while as it cleaned its feathers. A short while later we spotted a third Great
Blue.
As we walked further along the old canal with was filled
with water, we also saw a pair of large painted turtles and a green heron. We so enjoy discovering animals and birds as we walk in the woods. To see them in the wild, just doing their natural things is a highlight of any of our walks.
After our enjoyable walk, we returned to our walk and headed
towards our AirBnB home for the night.
Patti spotted a fruit and vegetable market, which we stopped at and
bought the makings for our dinner: Ohio homegrown Sweet corn and tomatoes were
the stars. Delicious!
We then went on to our home right at the edge of the park,
and met our hosts who were heading off on a long bike ride, preparing for a 100-mile
bike ride on the next weekend. They welcomed
us, and then we settled in to cook and eat our delicious fresh food and work on
pictures. It was a great spot for a nice
evening, and we also enjoyed talking with our hosts when they returned. Another AirBnB success.
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