Once we'd left the Indiana Dunes State Park, we had about a 5 hour drive to Cuyahoga Valley. Durning the drive through Indiana and Ohio we payed a ridiculous amount on the toll roads, and took a short detour into Michigan to eat lunch at the visitor center. Driving into the park we passed a little metal sign that told us we had entered Cuyahoga Valley National Park, and we were thinking, 'If they don't even have a normal national park sign, what's the rest of the park going to be like?'. We did eventually find a bigger sign more like what we were expecting as we left the park.
When we found the information center we talked with a lady who had been there for the past 40 years and knew the park inside and out. She suggested some of the parks popular trails for us to hike on. The first short trail, Brandywine Falls, was a wooden walkway that led back into the woods and down 67 steps to the waterfall.
Our next stop inside the park was the Ledges Trail, which was a one and three quarters of a mile loop that led past a bat cave (it just so happened to be closed) and an overlook that was really quite disappointing. The trail itself was pretty nice being right at the base of the "Ledges", mostly sheer cliffs of rock around 50ft high that would have been fun to try and rock climb, but unfortunately this park does not allow rock climbing.
Our second to last stop was to walk along the Towpath Trail that led through the beaver marsh. Actually… we barely walked into the marshes before we decided that it really didn't seem that cool, so we turned back.
Our fourth and final stop in the Cuyahoga Valley was the Everett Road Covered Bridge that crosses Furnace Run. The reason the bridge is covered is to protect the wooden boards from harsh weather conditions, this is also the only remaining covered bridge in Summit County. Upon departing the park we drove an hour to a campground called Country Acres to spend the night.
The highlight of our stay in Ohio was getting to see the Wolfe Family. So, next morning we went to visit our friends. We met them at Sukkot (Feast of Tabernacles) last year. It was great to see them and get to catch up. After an hour or two we said goodbye and left for our next destination.
Next stop: Niagara Falls, Canada
-John
No climbing 50 ft high sheer rock cliff faces? Bummer. I won't be going there myself any time soon.
ReplyDeleteHey, Wolf family here! Really love all these pictures...what an adventure and how neat that we got to be a part of it :)
ReplyDeleteWe have been to that state park before, Kendall ledges, it's nice for a picnic :)
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