Cuyahoga National Park

 We stayed in Stow, OH to visit Cuyahoga National Park.  I first want to give a shout out to the area.   We stayed in a city park which had a campground, ball fields, playground, a dog beach, a couple historic houses and access to the tow path, which was a county wide walk/bike trail.  As we drove around we saw many small parks and lots of access points to the walk/bike trail.  The other fun thing for me in the town was it was the headquarters of Joann Fabrics, with a large store.  Unfortunately they are going out of business, but I did go in and take advantage of the sales. 

We did two trails in Cuyahoga National Park, Brandywine Falls and the Ledges.  

Brandywine Falls was flowing strong.  I was surprised when we walked along the top of the falls that it was that strong considering there wasn’t a large amount of water seemingly feeding it.  My favorite thing about the falls was how many steps/little falls there were under the big fall. 

Steps I was referencing

The town of Brandywine is another of many examples we have had this trip of thriving towns that disappeared due to the building of canals and eventually railroads that made their prosperity dry up.

The Ledges was a wooded trail (nice after all the desert landscape) with large rock walls.  The thing that caught my eye were the trees hanging on to ledges and their roots coming down the rock looking to take hold to some soil or find water.  It was good to be hiking again.  

This is an example of the roots coming down the rock 

I found these leaves interesting because they were so dried out they looked translucent.  Unfortunately, pictures can’t always show what your eyes see.

Til next time.