another park and the 4th lake 2017-08-07T13:32:59-04:00

This morning we drove into Cuyahoga Valley National park, found the visitor center, stamped my national park passport book, and chatted with a friendly park ranger. He came over when he saw us consulting the park map and offered his assistance. He suggested, after we told him we had limited time, that we choose one of the two most popular attractions. We chose The Ledges over Brandywine Falls.  We've seen lots of falls in our lifetimes, Niagara being the most recent and notable.

We hiked a portion of the trail to see the face of the rock formation, but opted not to climb to the top.

Our next mission was to see Lake Erie.  We left I-80 a little west of Cleveland and drove along the lake's southern shore. There are lots of places that have public access, so we chose a park in Vermilion, Ohio to get out and walk down to the shore.

So, to review, on this trip we've had our feet in four of the Great Lakes. We'll have to make it to Lake Superior another time.

Our goal the rest of the day was to get past the Chicago area, and we managed to do that. We stayed at a Hampton Inn in Peru, IL. We were going to grab a burger at Steak 'n Shake, since John had never been in one, but the parking lot was packed. So, we went to Culver's, one of our old favorites. I think of it as part of the process of getting back to normal.