Summer Vacation 2021: Cuyahoga Valley National Park, Ohio

On our last day of driving home, Saturday, we stopped, much to Scott's protesting, at Cuyahoga Valley National Park to hike The Ledges and get out and stretch.  I figured we were driving right by the exit on the freeway and it was a good opportunity to extend our vacation by an hour or two.  Scott would have preferred we kept going on home, but guess who won this battle?!  

We didn't even make the time to go into the visitor's center, which was difficult for me and the boys since they couldn't do their Junior Ranger booklets.  We drove right to the trailhead, which ended up being a solid 15 minutes off of the freeway.  The parking lot was large and we were easily able to grab a spot at about 2pm on a Saturday in June.  

There were park rangers there right as we started on the trail.  They had a table set up with coyote fur and a few other animal skins/hides to pet.  They told the boys a bit about some local animals and then we set off to hike.  The trail is a 1.8 mile loop, with a short walk to the official start of the trail.  I'm embarrassed to say we got lost, not once, but twice!  We somehow ended up on the Happy Days Trail that connected and then on some other trail that had us walking along the street to get back to the parking lot.  

Despite getting lost and it being hot and humid, we enjoyed our quick stop.  I definitely want to go back and get the full experience hiking Brandywine Falls and re-doing The Ledges.  I can see a day trip, maybe even an overnight, in our future.