Cuyahoga Valley National Park trip 2020

August 18th -August 22nd 2020

NY, PA, OH

Ever since my visit to Shenandoah National Park, I have been longing to make a pilgrimage to all of the 61 National parks in the National Park system. I have hit a few over my lifetime, but only a few; (Acadia and Mammoth Cave and  I did some when I was a kid, but I am not counting these). I joked about making this a bucket list and busied myself during this social distancing time to do some research. I figure I have at least another 25-30 (+) years left to actually get to and enjoy the additional 57 National Parks. I'm not getting any younger. So, I need to average about 2 a year to meet the goal of ALL. Of course some are clumped together making 2 or more easy, but I live in the East and there are only a few National Parks around. The next closest National Park to my home is Cuyahoga Valley in Ohio, so I began planning. I searched trails, watched YouTube videos and plotted my trip. That was all before Cuomo (NY's Governor) had placed a 14 day return quarantine  on something like 36 states including Ohio. I was bummed!!!! 

I began other park trip planning, purchased a National Parks Passport stamp book and began searching for National Parks within the National Park system. I have hit several already in NY and had my stamps, but there are so many that I had visited that I never got my stamps from....do I return to NY City to get a few stamp? Do I really want to do another Washington DC trip to fill up the red section of my passport book? Is a 4 hour trip downstate for the missing Vanderbilt Mansion stamp in Hyde Park really worth the effort? I'm still undecided. I was able to conquer several parks that were available via the COVID 19 virtual tour and have decided that this was enough for many of them to count and downloaded the stamp for future printing and adhering to my  Passport book. 

(Here are a few examples);

 During this time, I was contacted by my college roommate and discussed a visit to her home on Cape Cod. I was interested in adding Cape Cod National Seashore to one of my stops on the visit. Plus, Massachusetts is not on Cuomo's list. Unfortunately, she was unable to schedule a visit due to her work. Bummed again......

BUT!!!! Ohio suddenly came off the no travel list, and I informed the hubby he needed to take the following week off because we were going to Ohio......I had my itinerary ready...Let the VACATION begin.

Day 1:

We left early that morning and traveled to Buffalo, NY.  I have been eager to get a quick picture with the "Shark Girl" statue, hit another National park (Theodore Roosevelt Integral site) and had plan to hike the Enteral Flame just south of the city. This was a small detour off I-90 .

Buffalo has created this beautiful pathway along the river. (River walk). I have been interested in taking it since seeing the stretch of boardwalks along the river when Mark and I visited Buffalo for the NY Rangers game over 3 years ago. Getting a picture with Shark Girl was a bonus. 

Well, we found the area where Shark Girl was suppose to be sitting and this was what we found instead....

NOOOOOO! She's in conservation.....(I  contacted the Albright-Knox art museum since and I have been informed that she will be returning in 2021)

I was quite upset, but Mark and I decided to walk around for a bit before hitting the road again. The National Park in Buffalo did not open for a while, and I decided that taking the 20 minutes south to the Eternal Flame was not worth the detour since I would clearly have to come back to Buffalo soon.

The Friendship bridge. 

We walked around the Navel Military Park before heading back to the car.

I don't know much about this ship, but it was massive. 

It was a lovely walk along the River and now we were ready to hit the road, it was still only 9 in the morning. 

We crossed into the tip of Pennsylvania and stopped in Erie for one of Mark's bucket list items. 

Presque Isle Downs and Casino in Ohio. Mark has his own bucket list and this includes all of the American race courses. He had several listed along our route of this trip. I am willing to oblige. He loves the horses and if stopping at these places makes him happy, well I am all for it. I do believe there are more National Parks then races courses, (He is eliminating  harness racing courses) so he'll be dragged around more then me. 

There were no races going on during our visit, but the Casino was open. Mark won some money and I picked up a $1 chip for my collection. All COVID precautions were taken.  

Soon we were in Ohio close to Cleveland then headed south to another of Mark's Bucket list tracks. 

 The Jack!

There was actually races going on while we were there so we enjoyed the outdoors and watched a race. 

There are no table games here so I was unable to get a chip for my collection, but Mark won some money in the machines. 

Our next stop was our hotel. I found a place in Richfield, OH. The location was only a short drive the the National Park, but there really isn't much else around. We located only 1 gas station and Subway was listed at #5  as best restaurant. We did find a few things to keep us busy for the afternoon and took a hike in this pretty city park. 

 O

Very lovely. 

After our hike, we went to Michael Angelo's Winery. 

It was a very nice place. Perhaps a little too "nice" for us. The area is clearly a wealthy part of Ohio, located about 1/2 between Cleveland and Akron. Well, my wine was yummy, expensive but yummy and the views of the grapes were reminiscent of the Finger Lakes. The winery was also a restaurant,  and there wasn't any tasting going on. Very different from what I had hoped, but the choice I made was excellent. 

We opted out of a meal here and found a place that was just our style. Whitey's Booze and Burgers was a bit more our speed. (I will admit that the name of this place did cause me to have some feelings of uneasiness, especially nowadays.) Despite the 2020 questionable name, the food was incredible!

I had the BOMB burger. Mac and Cheese, bacon burger on a pretzel bun. My mouth is still watering.  

After dinner, and feeling so full and I had to take home half, we headed back to the hotel for an early night. 

Day 2: NATIONAL PARK DAY

 We started the day at Beaver Marsh located along the Ohio and Erie Canal Towpath, ( the longest trail that runs through the park.)

The Marsh is known to have Beaver, Otters and Muskrats swimming around in the marshes area. 

I was excited for the opportunity to see such animals in the wild and we started this trail rather early.  We headed along the trail and shortly found the marsh boardwalk. Surprisingly there were a few people already there armed with their cameras. 

(Beaver or Otter out there maybe?)

 I heard noise in the brush, and took a quick look to see what was a brown animal swimming through the Lilly pads and aquatic plants. I tried to get a picture, but I never found anything after my shots were taken. I think it was a beaver, but Mark thinks that it was an otter. We may never know, but it was still pretty cool. Although I did not get a picture of the "beaver/otter", I did catch a Heron, who posed nicely for several photo opts.  

He seemed proud to be the subject of several photo shoots. 

Yet, another beautiful photo option was the scenery as the sun began to rise up over the hazed marsh. 

Stunning.....

We continued along the boardwalk searching for more otter/beaver sightings, as well as some turtles. 

I searched and searched , but didn't see any more mammals and I didn't even see any snakes or turtles.  

There was a ton of greenery and several birds. 

...and some sleeping bee's nestled in the flowers. 

Our next trail was along Indigo Lake. Very pretty and peaceful. 

Non pandemic times you can catch the train which runs along the river and the trail. The train was closed due to COVID, but you can take the train and bike along the trail. I thought this would have been a nice day, but unfortunately this option was not available. You can still rent bikes and this seems to be a highlight of the park. We saw more bikers then hikers and the trails are great for this. 

Up next we hit the Ledges trail. This was my favorite trail. The hike is about 2.1 miles round trip with some upward hikes as well as large rocks to climb over, but for the most part it is nice trail with incredible views of the rock formations. 

The trail was beautiful. 

The ledges as well as the Cuyahoga Valley is made of layers of sedimentary rock  developed 410-286 millions of years ago.  

The ledges are forms of beadrock of bedford shale formed by sea deposits, and agent rivers. Sand pebbles, and sea products deposited overt the years to develop these beautiful rock formations that are seen here at the ledges. 

It is really pretty amazing. 

Here is a close up of one of the sections. 

We really enjoyed this trail, and it is highly recommended. Once we completed the trail we headed to the visitors center. 

Like the Erie Canal the area is home to the Ohio canal we also visited the canal area. This is a great place for bike rental. 

The area is incredibly pretty. We found a pretty rock at the visitors center. 

Our next stop was to see the park's highlight Brandywine Falls. 

The short well paved hike takes you to this beauty. 

We hiked to the top for our first view then later walked down below for a full view. 

After our visit to Brandywine falls, we made a stop at the general store for some goodies and some time in the sunshine. 

The area located near the visitor center has a small town set back in time. 

Time for a little ice cream and relaxation. 

The park was very charming, but we really did not need more then a day to explore. There may have been a few more hikes we could have taken, but we felt that we were able to see the highlights of this wonderful National Park. 

The following day we headed off to Pennsylvania, where we stopped at another racetrack to add to Mark's racetrack bucket list. 

We then proceeded to drive about 45 miles out of our may (my mistake) to this national park unit. The Allegheny Portage Railroad National Historic Site. 

there was a nice visitor center with some information on the canal system as well as the trains that ran through out Pennsylvania.

Outside was a beautiful walk way down to the old train tracks .

Honestly it was not very  exciting and I was angry with myself for taking 45+  minutes out of our drive to visit. I had thought that the stop was along the way, I was very wrong. 

I suppose if you enjoy trains and train history, it might be something to stop at if you are in the area, but we were the only people there despite how beautiful the grounds were.

There were much better stops ahead and I wish I had planned better, but if you are interested in trains and  history our next stop was much more impressive.

We stopped at the Kinzua Bridge State Park. The railway bridge is one of the tallest and longest railway bridges ever created, but is one of the only such bridges that was destroyed by a tornado. 

The railway bridge was built in 1882 and was the highest railway viaduct in the world. (A scale of the bridge along side a scale of the statue of liberty.)

In 1900, the bridge was rebuilt to withstand heavier trains as it carried iron, coal, oil and timber throughout the region of hills and mountains of the Alleghney. 

In 1959, the use of freight trains across the bridge discontinued and the bridge as well as surrounding area, was eventually purchased by the state as a park in 1970. In 1977 the bridge was awarded national recognition as a historic civil engineering landmark. From 1987 to 2002 the trains crossing this bridge offered excursions through the Alleghney National Forest. In 2002 a much needed inspection halted transportation over the bridge and by 2003 construction to reinforce the structure began. That same year, on July 21st winds of 73-112 miles per hour swept through the valley causing 11 of the viaduct towers to be torn from there concrete base.  

Shown below is the twisted metal left behind from the tornado's devastation,  scattering the landscape. 

Today, although no longer accessable by train or through to the far side of the park via the bridge, there is a pedestrian walkway outstretching along the old bridge track overlooking the vast forest. 

Add caption

At the end of the bridge walkway is this glass floor. (Mark is standing on it below) 

In addition to the railway walk, there are a host of trails below the bridge. We decided to talk the short decline to just under the still standing columns below.  

There were several trails farther below that looked pretty neat to take that wound around the twisted metal, but we decided it was much to hot and a significant climb down (and worse) climb back up. (It is as deep as the empire state building after all.)

The park is also home to many animals. These include black bear, deer, turkey, grouse, rabbit, owls, porcupine, bobcats, raccoons, birds and BIG FOOT! Yes, Big Foot has been sighted in these mountains. In fact, Animal Planet featured "Finding Bigfoot" in these very mountains. A Bigfoot calling contest also held lured a caller to capture blurred photo's of a big furry upright animal lumbering through the forest. 

I really have to say this was one of the vacation highlights. We both really enjoyed the parks beauty as well as the history. 

It was soon time to head north towards our next destination. Bradford PA. There were some more places in the Allegheny National Forest that I had wanted to visit, but the additional driving time I accidentally created prevented us from being able to do more exploration. Instead we arrived in Bradford at our hotel and took a look at the areas home to the Zippo lighter and factory just before the end of the day. 

Zippo is perhaps the best known lighter in the world. Known for the sleek slender design and never blow out reliability, Zippo has made a name in history. 

The store/museum/factory was not on my list of things to do, in fact, I did not even known anything about it. This was a Mark find and it was actually quite enjoyable. (below a Zippo flag)

(a close up of one of he flag sections-I love the dancing bears)

This free museum opffered a ton of information on the history and use of the Zippo lighter as well as cases and case and cases of decals made over time. 

They are also the manufactures of the CASE knife and information in these were there as well. 

It was really kind of neat, I purchased myself and my husband a lighter as a souvenir. (they are not cheep, some are thousands of dollars and some of the older ones are collectors worth big money.) Maybe my penguins will be worth something  some day.  On my way out I found this painted rock. 

 

We had dinner at a local restaurant in Bradford before hitting the hotel for the night. We woke up early the next day to make our way back home. It was a wonderful little vacation..... I didn't get a picture , but as we headed home we kept seeing BEAR CROSSING signs/ I thought this was pretty cool, just like the Moose Crossing signs in Maine./We didn't see any bear through......TTFN