6/28/15 - Cuyahoga Valley National Park, OH

It was 62 degrees when we got up this morning.  Thank goodness the heavy rain and high winds are over.  We ended up with 4 inches of rain.  We left this morning and drove through Cleveland to Stow.  They have a city park with electric hookups and central water and dump for $8.00 per night when you stay for 5 nights.  There is a lot to see in the area so we paid for 5 nights.  We will use this as a base for visiting Cuyahoga Valley National Park and sights in Cleveland, Akron, and Canton.  We drove into the park. This is a large park along the Cuyhoga River between Cleveland and Akron.  It has lots of hiking trails and one that follows the old Erie and Ohio canal system called the Towpath.  Mules used to pull the boats down the canal using a path on the side of the canal.

We stopped at the Peninsula Depot visitors center and saw lock 29 on the canal.  This lock is the best preserved in the park.  We saw a movie about the park at the Boston Store visitor center.  There are five waterfalls in the park and we went to the Blue Hen Falls and Brandywine Falls.  Because of all the rain, Brandywine was really pretty.  We stopped at Stanford House, an 1830 farm house that is now used as a youth hostel.  Then Jim drove us to Akron and we went to the Brick Oven Brew Pub where we had a pizza and a beer.