Day 26 - From Waterfall to Waterfall - It All Ended With an Awesome Hike!

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We were off to a slow start this morning - too much caffeine for Jody yesterday, so she had trouble falling asleep. By the time we finished breakfast and headed out, it was close to 10:00. It didn't really matter, though - we were only planning to visit the sites along the Cuyahoga Valley National Park Road and we were only about 10 miles south of the park. Of the 13 designated Park Attractions, there were 8 we planned to visit. Most of the others were related to train stations that we had already done yesterday. The main park road is called Riverview Road and runs about 26 miles from the north entrance to the south entrance of Cuyahoga Valley National Park. It's really a strange national park, as it is not remote or isolated, it was established in 2000 and is located in the middle of a bunch or suburban and rural neighborhoods. As we travel from site to site, we find ourselves constantly entering and exiting the park. Fortunately, there are no gates so it's not really a big deal.

We entered at the south and our first stop was Hunt Farm, which is really just a small farmhouse setup inside with activities for children. We had a nice little chat with the park ranger there, and stamped our passports for Hunt Farm. This was also a starting point for some and a crossover point for other bicyclist traffic. There were lots of people passing by continuously while we were there, and I can't say as I blame them, if we lived locally we would be riding the Tow Path a lot ourselves. It looks like a pleasant ride, some parts paved, some unpaved, with some hills but lots of turns and awesome views. There wasn't ,much for us to see and do at Hunt farm, so we got back on the bike and headed for Everett Covered Bridge.

Everett Covered Bridge is exactly what we expected - a covered bridge. It's part of the Tow Path and used by bicyclists, and judging by the road contents, it's also used by horse traffic. We walked around a little, took a few pictures and decided it was time to look for something more interesting. The next attraction on the list as we headed north was The Ledges. But it was described as a 2.2 mile loop hike around some rock formations, and we wanted to get to the waterfalls, so we passed The Ledges by for now and headed for the Visitors Center.

The Visitors Center was not very large, and we noticed a sign that there was a new, larger Visitors Center about to be constructed and to open in 2018. So for now, we settled for the small displays, they didn't even have an obligatory 20 minute movie. But they did have a number of Passport stamps, so we did get that done. They also had only a couple of t-shirts and only one design that either of us liked. We asked the ranger if there were any better t-shirts in town, and she pointed us across the street at a small souvenir store associated with the park called Trail Mix, and if they didn't have what we wanted there was a larger version in Peninsula. Fortunately, they had exactly what we wanted, so we were each able to get good t-shirts. It was now getting close to noon, and while the motorcycle riding had been fun, with really nice twists and turns, we still hadn't seen a waterfall.

So we hopped on the bike and headed the mile or so down the road to the first waterfall on our list - Blue Hen Falls. As we went to pull in the parking lot, we realized that not only was it unpaved and gravel, it was uphill and severely rutted. But we are getting used to offroading with the Goldwing this trip, so we just hung on and rode to the flat spot at the top of the parking lot and decided to wait to figure out how we would get down the hill when it was time to leave. It was a short but pleasant hike down to the falls, and they were very pretty. Of course we are only supposed to go as far as the observation platform, but there was a well worn path beyond that led all the way down to the water, so we headed down to get some better pictures. It was fun, and by the time we got back to the parking lot, we had recovered sufficiently to just get on the bike, hold on, and coast down to the bottom of the hill without incident.

Next stop was to be the largest of the Cuyahoga Valley waterfalls, the 60 ft Brandywine Falls. From Blue Hen Falls, it should have been a simple ride down the road for a few miles to the next waterfall, but we are back in the North, and road construction is everywhere in the spring. Just as we started, we noticed the detour sign for the path we were headed, so we took the detour down the road and let the Garmin recalculate. As we were following along the detour, a second detour appeared, so we ended up on a detour of our detour, but 20 minutes later, we were entering the parking lot of Brandywine Falls. This was a really nice waterfall, really tall with lots of flow. There were 3 observation platforms, Lower, Upper, and the Old Mill. The lower view was the best, and of course, seeing others leaving the path to get a closer view, we did the same. We couldn't get all the way down to the waters edge, but the pictures were much better at the closer vantage point. We took additional pictures at the other observation points including what was called the Old Mill. Evidently there was once a water powered grist mill that harnessed the power of the falls until the 1920's when the electric company built its own water powered generator on the location of the old grist mill. Both had been abandoned and there were just ruins where they had stood.

When we left Brandywine Falls, we headed over to the Brecksville Nature Center to see what it was about. The motorcycle riding has been excellent, with lots of twists and turns and hills and the road to Brecksville Nature Center was the best scenery so far. There was lots of tree canopy over the road, and lots of walking paths for hikers along the road. There were fields and picnic areas, and it was all very scenic. I don't know whether we just weren't paying close enough attention, or what, but after several miles of great scenery, we were exiting the park without seeing the nature center. It was just as well, as gas was running low, stopped in town and gassed up before returning to the park through the same road. By then we notice the small sign for the Nature Center, but it was a footpath into the woods, and we were anxious to get to Bridal Veil Falls so we just skipped it.

After leaving Brecksville, there was one more significant waterfall to see - Bridal Veil Falls. This was located in the most northeast corner of the park, and the sky was darkening as we may be in for an afternoon shower. So far we have been pretty lucky in this park at avoiding the rain, but as we approached Bridal Veil Falls, we were beginning to feel a few sprinkles. We were hoping the parking area would have a shelter of some sort, but not this one. So we just decided to hike down to Bridal Vale Falls anyway and hope the tree cover which was substantial would keep us reasonably dry. We were in luck, it rained a little, but we barely noticed under the tree cover. Bridal Veil Falls was different than the other falls, as it tended to follow a wide slanted rock. It was also very pretty, and we were able to walk down to the waters edge easily and take pictures. Fortunately, we finished with our pictures and were heading back when a large family came down and were walking all over the rocks around the falls. We would never have been able to take pictures while they were there. By the time we made it back to the bike, there was evidence of rain, but it had stopped and the sun was coming back out.

By now it was time to turn around and head back south. Our first stop along the way in Peninsula to check out the larger souvenir store Trail Mix. We checked it out, and it was larger all right, but the t-shirts we bought at the smaller store were still the best, so we just bought a couple of Diet Cokes and chatted with the clerk for a while. As we were leaving, we noticed a small gallery behind the train station and remembered that we had seen it yesterday on the train. We stopped in to see what they had, and it turned out to be the kind of gallery we like a lot. It was a working pottery shop, so of course they had plenty of pottery, but there was a lot of handcrafted jewelry from local artists. Most of it was silver which keeps the costs down, and there were even some interesting pieces where they set porcelain in silver. Jody liked it a lot and of course, I ended up getting her a pendant she liked.

As we headed further south the roads were pretty wet, like we had missed the downpour similar to yesterday. But the sun was shining as we headed for our last stop on the way back to the hotel - The Ledges. This is the 2.2 mile hike we skipped in the morning and saved for later in the day. It turned out to be the best hike so far on this trip. Though only 2.2 miles, it was a big loop around a series of high cliffs where we started out above the cliffs and looking out beyond, but about halfway around the loop we descended below the cliffs so we could look up at where we had been. The path was worn, but not particularly well marked in some spots, so we had to be careful to stay on what we thought was the path. It was great fun, lots of tree roots, rocks, climbing up and down. By the time we were done, we were starving, but we thoroughly enjoyed the hike, and were ready to get back to the hotel for dinner.

As we reached the hotel, the sky was beginning to darken a little, same as yesterday, but we made it back without rain. We went to dinner at the same Tommy Li's as yesterday since we both liked it so much, and Jody had the green bean dish that I had yesterday and I tried a chicken Chinese noodles dish. They were both great, and while we were eating dinner, the sky opened up again and the rain came down. But same as yesterday, the rain stopped as we were leaving so we made it back to the hotel without getting wet.

Tomorrow, the original plan was to head to Pittsburgh and the Andy Warhol Museum (our last art museum) and then turn south to Ohiopyle, PA to do some whitewater rafting. It had been in the upper 80's in Ohiopyle last week, but it was only expected to be in the mid-70's for the next few days - too cold for Floridians to even consider doing anything in the water. So we're skipping Ohiopyle - we'll do some whitewater rafting in July when we get back to Tennessee when it's warmer. So after Pittsburgh tomorrow, we're turning north to Niagara Falls for 3 nights. We've been looking forward to Niagara Falls for the whole trip, and we're hoping the crowds in mid-June will be better than they would be in July.

105.7 Miles Today

3960.6 Miles Total

5.661 Gallons Today

101.279 Gallons Total

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