I had heard there was a national park in Ohio, and since our route was taking us close by we decided to make Cuyahoga National Park our first stop after Cedar Point. Originally the plan was to spend four days there over the weekend allowing time for Sam to catch up on a work and we could rest.

Sometimes things don’t always go according to plan.

We found a nice city park with a “strong” 20amp hook up which allowed us to run our air conditioner (needed in the humid and hot climate!). After checking the weather we decided that hiking early afternoon would be best and set out to see the Ledges Trail in one section of the park.

“The Ledges Trail in Cuyahoga Valley National Park reminded me, surprisingly, of NW Arkansas. Only Arkansas has more mountain biking. We were planning to take a few days near the park to recover from Cedar Point and get caught up on life but one thing led to an insane dash and we only had an afternoon. We made the most of it. Loved learning about the early canal and lock system (fascinating way of life – our next house might be a river boat), got sweaty on a humid hike (I hate those), earned a Jr. Ranger badge (we’ve lost count) and saw Brandywine Falls. ✔️” – @currentlywandering

We then spent some time at both the Boston Mill Visitor Center where the kids started their Jr Ranger badges, and at the Canal Exploration Center about 20 minutes north of that. Learning about the canal system, the transportation of people and goods, and the locks were completely fascinating. Such a cool piece of American history!

When we got back to the trailer around 5:30 or 6pm Sam casually tossed out the idea of leaving that evening. If we sped things up *just* a little we would catch up with our friends, the Erickson’s, sooner plus we could make it to Palmyra in time for the Hill Cumorah Pageant. The kids voted enthusiastically in favor so we gobbled dinner, hitched up and left. Just like that.

“Today we visited Niagara Falls. Visiting on a Saturday wasn’t particularly wise, but we had a reason that I’ll get into in future posts.

We visited with the Airstream in tow, and immediately headed to the most remote parking lot, where we were the longest rig parked today. We decided to use our bikes to get around and that worked very well even with the large crowds we encountered. We walked into Canada (no bikes allowed across the walking border) for Poutine (at Smoke’s Poutinerie) and Ice Cream. We discovered that the insanity on the American side was tame by comparison to the absolute circus present on the Canadian side.

On the way back to the Airstream, I captured this view on a slightly lesser used trail. You can just see the top of the falls and a plume of mist in front of Canadian city. Just for this one moment, it was peaceful.” -@telegramsam

We had bigger plans for Niagara (like a boat tour or the aquarium, or anything really) but as it was a Saturday and we didn’t want to fight hordes of people our walk into Canada was deemed sufficient.

We loaded back into the Airstream for the 2.5 hour drive to Palmyra, NY and were off!