We left Indianapolis and headed for our next capital, which was Columbus, Ohio. We drove on secondary roads most of the way and the weather was good, which, combined with the new sway bar, made the drive fairly relaxing. We pulled into Columbus in the late afternoon and again couldn’t find a parking place, so Tom pulled over in a spot where we weren’t sure what the deal was with the parking, and I sat in the truck while he ran back a few blocks to snap a couple of photos of the Capitol.
The Ohio Capitol was the least impressive of the Capitol buildings we have seen so far. We realized as we drove away and looked at it from a distance that it does have a small rotunda on the top, but it’s so small you can’t even see it from across the street.
We drove out of Columbus and headed in the general direction of our first National Park, Cuyahoga Valley National Park. It was too late in the afternoon to get there in one day, and that park doesn’t offer camping anyway, so we got on line and found a state park about midway between Columbus and the National Park. Malabar Farm State Park is a nice little park that includes a working farm, maple syrup production, and an equestrian campground with lots of trails for hiking, biking, and horses. When we got to the park we discovered that the only way to stay there is to make online reservations and pay on line with a credit card, but we figured out that if we stood on the top of the hill and faced the right direction, Verizon gave me enough bandwidth to accomplish that. It was a Friday night, but the only campground users other than us were two parties staying in tents, and one party of horseback riders with their horses, so it was a very quiet night. In the morning, we went for a long hike, and found that the reason the campground is so sparsely used was that a storm had gone through in June and knocked down a lot of trees, and most of the trails were only recently opened. That was actually great for us because enough trails were open to let us take a long and interesting hike, but we only ran into one other human on the trail who told us that the park had been closed most of the summer and a lot of people didn’t realize it was open again.
We felt very at home parked next to the mounting block with horses next to us. The campground is set up with well maintained picket lines for the horses.
There was lots of damage front the June storm, but the trails were beautiful.
We left Malabar Farm and headed for Cuyahoga Valley National Park, which was less than two hours away. We stopped and resupplied, and pulled into the park around 3PM. We called the park office to ask if it was possible to boondock in a parking lot overnight, and were very clearly told that sleeping in your vehicle is absolutely not allowed. We decided to overnight at a nearby Walmart, and with that decision made, we still had a couple of hours to hike around one of the prominent trails at the park, aptly called The Ledges.
Near sundown we headed for the Walmart, where we had a surprisingly quiet night. We spent the night making a plan for where to hike the next day, and in the morning we headed out to do two trail loops near the Boston Mill Visitor Center.
In the morning, we hiked the Brandywine Gorge Loop.
In the afternoon, we did a shorter hike to Blue Hen Falls, which was smaller than Brandywine, but very pretty.
When we finished hiking, we started thinking about finding a place to stay on our way to New York. Tom found a blueberry and maple syrup called Messenger Century Farm on Harvest Hosts, and while we waited for them to respond we started heading in that direction, figuring that if we couldn’t stay there, we could find someplace along the way. When we got there and pulled up in front of the driveway, the owners Bill and Dee, along with their son and daughter-in-law, met us and immediately made us feel welcome. It was a great overnight stop and we will definitely stay there again if we go that way, and we will also get more of their excellent maple syrup and honey.
We parked in a flat and spacious gravel parking lot adjacent to their barns and blueberry fields along a country road.
We parked so our door faced the west since Dee told me that their sunsets could be spectacular. That turned out to be very good advice.
In the morning, we packed up and headed for New York. We left a little on the late side because a cold front with lots of rain had blown through around 8:00, and we wanted to make sure we were behind it, but we had clear driving all the way, even if the roads were wet in spots.
On the way to Bloomfield, we stopped at the Bemus Point rest area on Lake Chautauqua and were treated to a beautiful if chilly view of the lake. Autumn was definitely in the air.