CV National Park
Holly and I went to Cuyahoga Valley National Park yesterday.
We first packed up the cooler and headed off to the grocery store for a bag of ice at about 6:00 AM. Holly went in and I waited in the car by the door since nobody was around. The next thing I know I hear a loud crash and I see a young male burst out of the doors with a store clerk scrambling after him. The clerk was shouting and barely had a hand on the kid as they sprinted along the front of the store. The clerk chased the kid till he got to the alleyway next to the store and he decided it would be smarter to stop there. I quickly parked the car and ran inside. As I entered the store, I wasn't sure what I was about to see and I was afraid something happened to Holly.
When I entered the store I saw that Holly was ok and standing at one of the registers but the clerk was completely shook-up. After making sure Holly was ok, the clerk told us that the kid swiped a $2000.00 money bag out of his hands as he was walking towards the self check-out lines to fill them. My reaction of,"Oh damn, that sucks!" probably didn't impress or win me any points.
Next we fired off to Cuyahoga Valley. I have rarely ever visited this part of the state and couldn't wait to check out the nationally guarded landscape.
We first went to "the ledges" which are extremely old cliffs that are basically in the middle of the woods for what seems to me no reason. The rock here is completely different from different parts of the state. The cliffs and stone found in Hocking Hills, in the southern part of the state, are sandstone and look much newer and were also not part of the glacial shift. Most of the rock along the Cuyahoga Valley was pushed here when a huge glacier was heading south and later forming the great lakes. The cool thing about "the ledges" is that there are huge cracks to fit through and age-old shafts/passages you can find between the rocks ... if you are not squeamish. In one passage I found, it looks like someone was currently carving Caesar style heads into the limestone. The chisseling and carving did look like it was done by a professional which kinda told me how much people never realized that this passage even existed. The "Ice Box Cave" is the destination at "the ledges" and it seems to go into the ground for a while. With no light and improper shoes to keep my feet dry, it is hard to tell how far the cave goes.
After several hours of hiking we visited Bandywine Falls and ate lunch at a picnic area. We then ventured to Blue Hen Falls... then onto see "Deep Lock 28" and its surrounding quarries. "Deep Lock 28" is part of Ohio's old canal system that used to run from Lake Erie, down the Cuyahoga River and eventually into the canal system that had several "locks" to change the elevation of the cargo boats. The lock is the most preserved one I have ever seen because it is almost completely intact. I have seen other parts of the canal system sitting in the middle of corn fields as just a corner of an old lock which looks like a bunch of rocks. These canals and locks used to move cargo boats much farther south than they should have ever been. These days, this canal does not exist other than the huge locks that mark an outline of where it once ran.
After all that hiking and discovering the sky split and it started to pour so we headed home. It was an extremely fun day in which I wish Holly and I had more of.
We first packed up the cooler and headed off to the grocery store for a bag of ice at about 6:00 AM. Holly went in and I waited in the car by the door since nobody was around. The next thing I know I hear a loud crash and I see a young male burst out of the doors with a store clerk scrambling after him. The clerk was shouting and barely had a hand on the kid as they sprinted along the front of the store. The clerk chased the kid till he got to the alleyway next to the store and he decided it would be smarter to stop there. I quickly parked the car and ran inside. As I entered the store, I wasn't sure what I was about to see and I was afraid something happened to Holly.
When I entered the store I saw that Holly was ok and standing at one of the registers but the clerk was completely shook-up. After making sure Holly was ok, the clerk told us that the kid swiped a $2000.00 money bag out of his hands as he was walking towards the self check-out lines to fill them. My reaction of,"Oh damn, that sucks!" probably didn't impress or win me any points.
Next we fired off to Cuyahoga Valley. I have rarely ever visited this part of the state and couldn't wait to check out the nationally guarded landscape.
We first went to "the ledges" which are extremely old cliffs that are basically in the middle of the woods for what seems to me no reason. The rock here is completely different from different parts of the state. The cliffs and stone found in Hocking Hills, in the southern part of the state, are sandstone and look much newer and were also not part of the glacial shift. Most of the rock along the Cuyahoga Valley was pushed here when a huge glacier was heading south and later forming the great lakes. The cool thing about "the ledges" is that there are huge cracks to fit through and age-old shafts/passages you can find between the rocks ... if you are not squeamish. In one passage I found, it looks like someone was currently carving Caesar style heads into the limestone. The chisseling and carving did look like it was done by a professional which kinda told me how much people never realized that this passage even existed. The "Ice Box Cave" is the destination at "the ledges" and it seems to go into the ground for a while. With no light and improper shoes to keep my feet dry, it is hard to tell how far the cave goes.
After several hours of hiking we visited Bandywine Falls and ate lunch at a picnic area. We then ventured to Blue Hen Falls... then onto see "Deep Lock 28" and its surrounding quarries. "Deep Lock 28" is part of Ohio's old canal system that used to run from Lake Erie, down the Cuyahoga River and eventually into the canal system that had several "locks" to change the elevation of the cargo boats. The lock is the most preserved one I have ever seen because it is almost completely intact. I have seen other parts of the canal system sitting in the middle of corn fields as just a corner of an old lock which looks like a bunch of rocks. These canals and locks used to move cargo boats much farther south than they should have ever been. These days, this canal does not exist other than the huge locks that mark an outline of where it once ran.
After all that hiking and discovering the sky split and it started to pour so we headed home. It was an extremely fun day in which I wish Holly and I had more of.
posted by Benners at 2:39 PM
2 Comments:
I was at the nat'l park yesterday as well. As I told Holly, we probably walked past each other at some point and didn't realize it
=)
I didn't know I had my own national park?? :-P
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