Happy Freakin' New Year

After staying up to watch the ball drop and catch some quick fireworks out the hotel window I went to bed. However, the light from the hair dryer in the bathroom was annoying me so I got up to swing the bathroom door shut. A few hours later I got up to use the bathroom and (forgetting my earlier foray) walked straight into the door, opening it face first. That woke me up and gave me a nice little bump on my forehead.

Upon waking up in the morning, I discovered that it was pouring rain outside and my nose was running uncontrollably. Thank goodness it was still about 55 degrees outside which made it slightly more bearable to go outside. Cuyahoga National Park runs between Cleveland and Akron so I decided to work my way from north to south. My first stop was the Leonard Krieger Canal Center. Being New Years Day, it was closed, but I thought I’d at least go for a walk. Walking down a hill I came upon a swamp and a drainage ditch with a train trestle and sewage pipes running overhead. A train even thundered across while I was reading about how sewage pipes work and picking my way among dilapidated railroad crossings and examples of insulators and switches. Did you know that silver pipe carries sewage to a treatment plant which cleans it and puts it back in Lake Erie which is where drinking water comes from? The circle of life. I crossed the canal and wound my way into a forest where I came across rusted out farm equipment that was supposed to help me envision what Ohio once was. I continued through the forest and ended up alongside the Cuyahoga River-infamous for being so polluted that it caught fire. Time magazine described the Cuyahoga as the river that "oozes rather than flows" and in which a person "does not drown but decays”. Towards the end of the trail there was a section that t passed through with a white railing in massive circle. Reading the exhibits I learned that the white railing represented the size of the massive fuel tank sitting across the river -an interesting thing to think about on a hike. It started raining a lot heavier so I took a quick trip through the “bird sanctuary” aka swamp and hopped back in my car. My next stop was Cataract Falls-the tallest falls in Cleveland County. I’m pretty sure a drug deal was going down in the parking lot so I took a quick picture of the falls and left.I continued south along the Ohio Canal scenic byway which is the main thoroughfare through the park and there were a few interesting stops along the way (although you had to fight your way through urban sprawl and poor maps to get there).

The Frazee House overlooked the canal and reminded me of the Washington Tavern that I'd seen in PA over my Thanksgiving trip. Another stop was at the Brecksville station. During the summer a train goes through the park and makes various stops. I had planned on hiking out a ways to see some bird nesting sites but after I cross the bridge I realized that there would be no birds this time of year so I turned around and got back in my car.

I finally made it to somewhat of an oasis. I drove down to a section of the park that included Tinker Creek gorge and Bridal Veil Falls (which were just overlooks). I decided to hike to Deer Lick Cave. It was 4 miles round trip but I’m always intrigued by caves so I loaded up on Kleenex and headed out. The trail wasn’t bad at all and the rain had stopped and it was nice and warm. However, when I finally came across the caves they were literally a couple hundred feet from a parking area! Why the hell is it listed as a 4 mile hike if it’s a roadside attraction!? Normally I wouldn’t mind but I felt like crap and this just pissed me off.

After storming through the “caves” (more like overhangs) I tromped off to go back to my car. In my haze of anger I must have gotten off on the wrong trail and ended up on a bridle path. I thought maybe with all the rain, the streams were bigger in size so normally there wouldn't be a bridge. I only figured out it was a bridle trail after I had to cross 3 streams by fallen log. I got back on the right trail (or so I thought) and it started pouring rain and I could feel the temperature dropping and the trail kept going further back into the woods, rather than to the parking lot. Finally I said screw it and launched myself down a steep hill covered in wet leaves and bushwhacked back to the parking lot. I was pretty miserable at this point so I stopped at one more overlook and then made my way back to the hotel via Blue Hen Falls. It was just a short walk and they were pretty cool. I love this picture below because of my new camera setting. It was a dreary, gray day but I used my color swap feature and picked up the blue in my umbrella and then took a picture of the sky and voila; a blue sky. I hurried back to the hotel to get warm and dry. The rains were so bad that the roads were flooded. I got a lovely car wash. My adventures kept coming though when I decided to eat soup for dinner. I had left the can in my car so I decided to just open it in my car and pour it into my Tupperware container that I thoughtfully had brought along. To avoid another Adirondack incident I also brought along a vintage can opener. However, it didn’t work so well and only liquid poured out of the small opening into my Tupperware container. In my anger at the soup can I managed to knock over the Tupperware and spill chicken soup juice all over the backseat of my car. I finally managed to get the soup in the container and ran back inside to stay in bed the rest of the night. Happy New Year to me.