Cuyahoga Valley National Park

Ohio has a nice national park that is located just ten miles from our campground.  We visited it the first weekend we were here. We thought we would be included in the plans for the re-visit this weekend, but Dad said they needed to cover a lot of ground and we would slow them down.  I'm sure he meant that Scout would slow them down and not me.  I'm a power walker.

The folks had planned to take Grandma and Grandpa to the park, but they cancelled their trip late last week.
Mama learned that the national park service has a passport program.  Missouri had one for a few years and the folks loved it.  They visited state parks and historic sites and they stamped a book at each place.  They said it was a lot of fun.  Mama purchased the book a few weeks ago and set out to get it stamped on Sunday.

The passport book.  It tells you about the different national parks and then has a place for your stamps and stickers. Stickers are available for purchase.

The stamps show where you visited and the date you visited.  Mama has six stamps so far.  This park has stamps at each visitors center.  There are several.

The passport book comes with a map of the United States and lists all the national parks and sites where stamps are available.   It's a fun way to plan trips.  Mama purchased the book at one of the visitors centers, but they can also be purchased online.  Mama said that she likes the stamps they used in Missouri better because they were all different shapes.  However, these look like passport stamps and have the date you visited, which is nice.

Before the folks set out to explore the park, they decided to eat lunch.  The park includes lots of little towns which have shops and restaurants.  They ate at Winking Lizard Tavern.  The place was packed.  Many people rode their bikes to the restaurant since there are so many trails in the park.  Some people rode the train.  Yes, there is a train that goes through the park.  Mama said they might do that next weekend, so that means we will not be going AGAIN.  As I was saying, the restaurant was packed, so they had to wait for a table.  There is a popcorn machine, so Mama ate some of that while they waited.  She said it was really good.  They were finally seated and they placed their order.  The menu had so many things to choose from.  Mama ended up choosing the Wild Western Burger.  It had cheese, bacon, onion straws and their award winning BBQ sauces.  She said it was delicious!

Wild Western Burger

Another view of the Wild Western Burger

Steak N Cheees

Dad said the Steak N Cheese was okay, but the burger looked better.  Mama said she would like to eat here again, but there are a few other places she wants to try.

The Winking Lizard?

After eating lunch, they set out to explore.  There is so much to see in the park and they didn't cover it all on Sunday.  They did not even cover half of it.

The river.

Lock 29 - ships used to come through here.

Beaver Marsh - they didn't see any beavers

Still no beavers, just a bird.

Covered bridge that is being renovated.

Creek that covered bridge goes over.

Inside the covered bridge.

Waterfall - Mama's favorite part of the park.

Long way down from waterfall.

Ledge along walk to waterfall.

Lots of steps to get to waterfall.

Platform at waterfall.

As much as Mama wanted to take us to the park, she is not sure it is a good place for us.  There are so many people riding bikes that we could easily get in the way.  It doesn't seem fair.

Joey,
The Greyhound Who Wants To Walk On A Trail.