By Shelby
This week, we started working at the university library in Erie, PA at Penn State Behrend. After work on Monday, we drove on to Cleveland Ohio where we ate Wendy’s for dinner. We had a nice view of some Cleveland skyscrapers from the parking lot.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, we worked from the Parma-Snow Branch of Cuyahoga Public Library. It was a very nice library. It looked very new. There was actually a film crew there. I’m not quite sure what they were filming. The library also was right across the street from the Planet Fitness we stayed at the previous night, so that was nice.
After work Wednesday, we drove to Tuxedo Park and made burrito bowls. It was a major success. We set up our folding table next to the car and used our cutting board/wash basin to chop up a couple of tomatoes, an onion, green pepper, and avocado. We had microwavable brown rice along with canned beans in sauce that we also cooked in our microwave. It was delicious.
The cleanup was interesting. We attempted to use the wash basin by getting a sponge wet and soapy to wash the dishes. We then poured some of our limited water over the dishes to wash the soap off. We didn’t have enough water to completely rinse them, so we used paper towels to clean off the soap. Then we had to wash the soap out of the wash basin, again using our limited water supply. Overall, it may have been easier to just use wet wipes to wipe down the dishes and then dry them with paper towels.
After dinner, we explored the park a bit. There was softball practice going on in one field. We stopped to watch a middle school baseball game for a while. Then we walked a short trail to a waterfall. We drove back to Wendy’s, which was near the Planet Fitness we were staying at, and I tried the new strawberry frosty. It was pretty good. Shortly after, it started to downpour. We relaxed in the car for the rest of the evening.
Thursday morning, we drove a short distance to see the houses from the movie A Christmas Story. That is one of my favorite movies, so it was really cool to see the houses it was filmed at. The leg lamp was in its classic location, the window. After snapping a few photos there, we moved on to Cuyahoga Valley National Park.
Cuyahoga Valley National Park is unique in that it is very close to an urban area and has many houses and farms located within the park itself. Unlike many other national parks, it was free to enter and we had cell service throughout the whole park.
Our first stop was the most popular trail, the Ledges Trail, a loop trail that follows along a tall sandstone cliffside covered in green moss. It was a beautiful trail, very green and vibrant. There were even small caves and crevices to explore.
After finishing the Ledges Trail, we drove on to the Everett Road Covered Bridge. This is the last remaining covered bridge in Ohio. There used to be over 2000 of them. We took a few pictures in front of the bridge and walked through it. The bridge is still in use today as part of a trail for walking and horseback riding. We decided to eat lunch there. I had a wrap and Spencer had a sandwich.
We drove on to Beaver Marsh, a wetland area that used to be a salvage yard until it was cleaned up in the ‘80s. Now it is home to many species of animals, including beavers, otters, and turtles. We kept a sharp eye out for beavers and otters, but unfortunately weren’t able to see any. We walked on a boardwalk over the water. There were many lily pads in the water, some of them with flowers. On our way back to the car, we were lucky enough to see a large turtle swimming in the water.
We attempted to see Brandywine Falls, the most popular attraction in the park, but unfortunately, the parking lot was closed, along with the road that led to it. We would have to walk 5 miles to get to it, which we didn’t have time for. Instead, we parked at the visitors center and hiked a 1.4-mile trail to get to Blue Hen Falls. It was pretty busy, likely because Brandywine Falls was difficult to get to. It was a nice waterfall, pretty standard. We took a few pictures, sat on a bench for a bit, and headed back to the car.
We decided to check out a cool bridge on I-80 we had gone under while driving to the park’s visitor center. We walked along the Ohio & Erie Canal Towpath Trail from the visitors center until we reached the underside of the bridge. We got some neat pictures there. It really was an impressive piece of engineering.
After returning to the car, we drove across the park to Tinker’s Creek Gorge Scenic Overlook to see the view. From there, we hiked down the hill to Bridalveil Falls, a tiny waterfall with a bridge crossing behind it. My legs were pretty tired from all the walking by that point.
Instead of returning to Cleveland that night, we decided to drive a couple of hours west to Toledo to get a head start on the driving for the next day. It was rough driving due west directly into the sunset, but at least we got a nice picture on the road.
On Thursday, we drove north up into Michigan. This is the first time either of us has been to Michigan. We decided to focus our time on Michigan’s upper peninsula. It seemed like there were more outdoor things to do up north. It was a long day of driving. We switched up who drove a few times throughout the 5-hour drive. Once we reached the north part of the lower peninsula, we stopped at a rest area that had a short trail to a scenic overlook over the highway.
Spencer surprised me with the idea of going mini-golfing in Mackinaw City, along with dinner at a restaurant on Lake Huron. Mackinaw City is the closest city to Mackinac Bridge which connects the upper and lower peninsulas. As it turns out, the Mackinaw City Motorcycle Rally was going on when we got there. There were hundreds of motorcycles parked in the small city. I had never seen so many!
We decided to have dinner before mini-golfing. We ate at the Hook Lakeside Grill. I got the seafood puttanesca and Spencer got the bison burger. The seafood puttanesca had mussels, which Spencer had never tried before and neither of us had tried bison. The bison tasted very similar to a normal beef burger. I wasn’t able to finish my whole meal, so I took it to go in a box. Unfortunately, the box didn’t fit in our fridge, so I transferred the pasta into a plastic freezer bag. We both had a good laugh at how ridiculous/funny the situation was.
We headed across the street to the mini-golf place but were distracted by a circular building with the words “American Wall of Death” on it. There were lots of people there as well. We decided to check it out. It turns out there was a free show going on where we saw a motorcycle drive in circles around the vertical inner wall. He got really high up on the wall, high enough to grab dollar bills from people’s hands. It was very cool!
Mini golf was fun. Spencer won by just a few points. I was happy that there were a few lilac bushes in bloom I could smell. Lilac is one of my favorite scents. We also got to test our knowledge of animal prints. Each hole had a wooden post with a type of animal track marked on it. If we were able to guess correctly what type of animal each belonged to, we could win a free game. We got 7 out of 18 of them correct, which was pretty good according to the attendant!
After mini-golf, we still had some time to kill before sunset. We were hoping to see a nice sunset over the lake. We walked over to the docks on the lake and walked along the pier. We saw a large coast guard boat, which was neat. However, there were so many bugs! They were everywhere. We ran to the end of the pier to quickly get a picture before running back to the land.
We then drove to McGulpin Point Lighthouse, a little out of the city. There were much less people there compared to in the city. We saw the lighthouse and walked down a short trail to the shore. We were able to get a nice view of Mackinac Bridge.
From there, we drove to Headlands International Dark Sky Park. This is where we hoped to get a nice sunset. Unfortunately, there were tons of bugs here as well. I couldn’t believe how many there were. At least they didn’t seem to bite, but they did land all over us. We may have accidentally eaten some of them. We did, however, see a very nice sunset over the water.
After the sunset, we drove out to cross the Mackinac Bridge. There was still lingering light in the sky, making it a pretty orange. While crossing the bridge, we were able to see both Lake Huron and Lake Michigan – one on each side of the bridge. That was very cool.
Once we were over the bridge, we parked at Bridge View Park where we were able to see the bridge all lit up. There were still bugs around, so we didn’t stay long. We drove along the coast of Lake Michigan and pulled over once more to get another view of the bridge. That night we slept at a rest area a little off the highway.
Saturday morning, we decided to drive further northwest to Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore to see the cliffs. Unfortunately, rain was predicted in the early afternoon, so we had to hurry up. We decided against doing the 6-mile Chapel Falls Loop trail. The road to the trailhead was dirt and we weren’t sure if we would make it. We also didn’t have the time to hike that long. Instead, we drove to Miners Castle, an overlook over the cliffs that was much more accessible. The best way to see the cliffs was by boat, but I think we still got a pretty good view from the overlook. The water was a beautiful turquoise. I didn’t know any of the Great Lakes had water that color.
From the overlook, we hiked a little over a mile down to Miners Beach, a beautiful sandy beach on Lake Superior. While on the hike, we accidentally went off trail and had to find our way back to the main trail. When we got to the beach, we saw people taking wedding pictures there. It must be pretty popular for that kind of thing. The beach was very nice, but the water was frigid. Thankfully there were no bugs. We started feeling a few raindrops, so we hurried back up the trail to the parking lot. As we drove away, the rain started coming harder. We made it just in time.
Our next destination was Kimberly, Wisconsin, a small city not too far from Green Bay. It was a four hour drive in the rain. A portion of the road was along Lake Michigan. We decided against stopping at a park along the coast for pictures because of the rain. Eventually, we stopped at John Henes Park in Menominee, Michigan to stretch our legs and see Lake Michigan. We were very close to the Wisconsin border now. At some point we had crossed into a different time zone without realizing it. My phone automatically adjusted the time. It was pretty nice to have an extra hour. From there, we had another hour’s drive to Kimberly. Wisconsin so far looked exactly as I had pictured it – a lot of farmland and billboards advertising cheese.
That evening, we worked on the website a little at Planet Fitness. It turns out that changing time zones messed up the timestamps for some of our photos, so that took Spencer a while to sort out. It was also nice to take a shower since we weren’t able to shower at the rest area that morning.
On Sunday, we did laundry at a local laundromat and hung out at a Barnes and Noble since all the libraries in the area were closed on Sundays. It was a very busy week, covering 3 states. We definitely needed a break from constantly moving. We plan on working in Wisconsin at least for Monday of next week before moving on to Minnesota. Overall, it was a very good week!
Fun Facts from Week 7:
- Only the exterior of the houses filmed in the movie A Christmas Story were used. The interior was filmed in a studio. The actual houses were later renovated to be as accurate to the movie as possible and then turned into a museum.
- Cuyahoga Valley National Park is the 13th most visited National Park in the US with 2.2 million visitors each year.
- The purpose of building roofs over bridges was to prevent the wood trusses and beams from rotting and decaying. When bridges began to be built from iron, the coverings were no longer needed.
- Mackinac Bridge has the longest suspended length of bridge in the western hemisphere, surpassed only by the Akashi Kaikyō Bridge in Japan, which was built after Japanese engineers visited the Mackinac Bridge and met with its engineers.
One response to “Week 7”
What a great time you are having!