According to Maggie and Parker, it's time for another road trip. So we are off to visit some friends and family, along with a few favorite stops from previous trips to see and learn more about our country.
Sunday, September 15: 309 miles, Westfield/Lake Erie KOA in Westfield, NY
Our first overnight, when heading west, is usually this KOA. It's easy to get to, right off I-90 and there is a lot of room to walk the pups.
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| US-11 to I-81 to I-90 |
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| Westfield KOA site 73 |
Monday, September 16: 149 miles, Streetsboro/Cleveland KOA, Streetsboro, OH
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| I-90 to I-271 to I-481 to OH-303 |
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| Streetsboro/Cleveland KOA site 614 |
We are here for a 3 night stay, and it is a new campground for us. The park turned out to be very nice. We were parked at the far end and there was a lot of room to take the dogs for walks.
The high point of our stay was a trip to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland. We got there right at 10:00, so parking was not a problem. It could have been later in the day. The museum is an experience in sensory overload between the architecture, music, light shows, videos and memorabilia. After six floors and two hours we were exhausted!! In hindsight, we should have spent an hour and skimmed all the exhibits, break for an onsite lunch and then go back to spend time in detail with the exhibits or genres that were of special interest. There is just too much to see to try to read or watch at every single exhibit. That said, it was an amazing experience, and I'm so glad we went. The exhibits are constantly changing, so a future return visit is not out of the question.
Wednesday we decided to take a scheduled two hour ride on the Cuyahoga Scenic Railroad that is operated by the Cuyahoga National Park System. It was fun, and we learned a lot of history, but................. because of mechanical issues the ride lasted three and half hours, not two. And.........the word scenic is open to a lot of interpretation. Lots of vegetation, which would be beautiful during peak color season, and few if any views of the beautiful Cuyahoga River.
The Cuyahoga River has an infamous legacy, primarily due to the 1969 incident where the river (actually oil sicks and floating debris) caught fire. While the heavily polluted river has caught fire many times, the combination of the late 60's and early 70's environmental movement, along with the activist Cleveland Mayor, Carl Stokes, the solution issue was brought to national attention. Some even credit the publicity of the fire to the formation of Earth Day in 1970. These two articles, one from The National Park Service and the other from Cleveland Historical are quick and interesting reads about the Cuyahoga fires.
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| Cuyahoga fire, stock photo from the internet |
Next up, we move on to the Toledo area for a weekend stay.
Thursday, October 19: 132 miles, Maumee Bay State Park, Oregon, Ohio
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| The route followed I-80 to US-2 most of the way. |
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| Site 116 |
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| Nearly Full Moon rising over the campsite. |
We checked in Thursday afternoon to another beautiful afternoon. The weather Gods have been with us so far on this trip. Maumee Bay is a beautiful park with 256 sites that are HUGE and private. Except for 20 sites, all the rest are 50/30 amp electric only. All of the roads and pads are paved and they are designed for easy back in. We were here back in September of 2015 for just one night. This is what I wrote back then, and it is still true. "Maumee Bay is probably the nicest state park we have ever stayed at. The park includes a huge beach on Lake Erie, an 18 hole Scottish Highlands golf course, and a nature center that has a two mile boardwalk through wetlands." There are numerous hiking trails through the fields of goldenrod and around the ponds.
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| Fields of goldenrod |
This area was once a huge swamp (often called
The Great Black Swamp) on the south side of Lake Erie before it was drained, settled and turned into farm land 200 years ago. Ohio acquired the farmland about 1974 and the park was developed beginning in 1975. By an absolute stroke of luck, I got to meet the original park manager, Jim Brower. I was walking Maggie one morning and a bicyclist stopped to pet her. As the conversation progressed, I discovered that he once was the manager here and I got a 15 minute private history lesson about how the park came to be. He said the planning process was meticulous, with the campground component of the park opening in 1981. Jim said that the campground is built on what were originally soybean fields. Here is an
excellent link to a Toledo newspaper interviewing Jim about his retirement. What a treat it was to visit with him.
We ended up spending two full days of rest and relaxation here with warm and sunny weather. We napped, read, cooked and went for long dog walks. Next time we will bring the e-bikes. There are so many paved trails, some even going to the nearby beach on Lake Erie. I have to end with more photos of the native wildflowers that have grown up in what were once soybean fields. We will definitely be back.
And so ends our stay at Maumee Bay State Park. Tomorrow we are off to a week in Michigan.
