Lake Erie Waterfront

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9/28/21

We didn’t have that much territory to cover today, so we did not leave the hotel until 8:55. But the real reason is that we are on the far west side of the eastern time zone and it is still dark at 7 AM. So we did not wake up until after 7:30. So, two excuses, you pick one. LOL

When we left the hotel it was 67 degrees with a promise of warming into the 80’s. And it did. The plan was to drive east from Sandusky, OH to Cleveland along as much shorefront as possible. We took to Rt 6 with became 6 and 20. And we drove through many small towns along Lake Erie. The first was Vermillion. And what a cute town this was. Their little downtown area is lined with little shops. The light poles are the colonial type, black with lanterns at the top. And each one was adorned with a large basket of pink and white flowers and an American flag. Charming. Steve wanted to know how they water those flowers. Perhaps it rains often. Who knows. And as we moved through the rest of the town, the flags were mounted on many telephone poles, waving gently in the wind, proud and a symbol of what this country is really all about.

By 9:45 we were in Lorain where we found Lakeview Park with a large gazebo, park benches, walking paths and healthy, well-mowed green grass. We stopped for a while to take in the views of the lake. They have a beach, which was inhabited by hundreds of white birds. Unfortunately I did not take the time to study them to see what they were. I’m thinking sea gulls. And they had constructed several breakwaters parallel to the shore, presumably to make bathing in the lake a little calmer. There was also a long breakwater reaching out into the deeper waters where we saw a light house and a house about half way out to the end. We are thinking perhaps it was the lightkeepers residence. We didn’t go out there, so we don’t really know.

As we drove on through this little town we noticed a lot of houses that look to have been built perhaps in the early 20^thcentury. They are modest homes, sitting side by side, looking much like we would be familiar with in New England.

As we got closer to Cleveland the lake frontage was totally consumed with large, very expensive homes. Some could be called estates. Others mansions. All were of different, yet creative and beautiful architecture. A few could have been 20,000 sq ft or more. The well-manicured front yards were lushly landscaped and immaculately manicured. And the closer we got to Cleveland, the bigger and more stately they became. On the other side of the road were some single family homes, many very nice and a lot of old apartment houses, many built of brick.

Eventually we saw the skyline of the city, through a maze of raised roads and tangles of powerlines. These do not make great photos and so I refrained from taking any. We passed the FirstEnergy Stadium where the Cleveland Browns play. It is located on the waterfront. And we wondered how all of those people get to the park. Parking did not seem to be amply available. I see that fans are encouraged to use public transit. As we exited from the city, we passed by the Progressive Stadium where the Cleveland Indians play. This town has it all.

We now turned the car south towards Cincinnati, but planned a stop in Columbus to see the state capitol. Don’t ever try this…not if you are using any kind of GPS. We put in the address of the capitol building in both my I-phone’s Google Maps and into the car’s GPS. Both led us to the center of town where we found Capitol St and State St. But no capitol. They kept trying to turn us down a short street that was closed to construction at both ends of a block. We drove in circles for half an hour on one-way streets and never found anything. Frankly, there is no way the capitol building could have been nestled in that block surrounded by high-rise buildings. The space was just not available. This search gave us both a case of indigestion and we decided to move on south.

We arrived in Cincinnati around 4 PM and checked into our hotel. Dinner complete, we are settling in for the night. Tomorrow, Mammoth Cave National Park.

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