Kyle and I took another weekend trip this time to Cuyahoga Valley National Park in Ohio. We ended up leaving after work on Thursday night and got a good head start. We arrived to the hotel that night but had only booked for Friday and Saturday night. They gave us the same discounted rate we had paid already. The price was a steal as it was barely $150 for three nights. It definitely wasn’t the Ritz but this one didn’t have flies landing on you when you slept either…
Brandywine Falls
We started out Friday morning by visiting Brandywine Falls. The falls are 65 feet tall and very impressive! There is a nice loop around them that we took and crossed a bridge over the river. We also ran into some ladies meditating by the river which was a first for us. It was weird to walk up and take photos of the water and try not to disturb them.
The Ledges
After Brandywine, we drove to The Ledges. We wanted to get the two busiest parts of the park out of the way. One of the park rangers had mentioned visitation is up 160% this year due to Covid and people traveling locally so we knew Saturday could be real busy. The Ledges were pretty cool! They are basically geological rock ledges that formed and you can walk around and through them. They were colored different shades of green, blue and tan. This area was my favorite part of the park.
Great Falls
After Ledges, we drove to Bridal Veil Falls which was another pretty waterfall and nice hike through the woods. We then continued on and stumbled upon a short hike that lead us to Great Falls. These falls were 40 foot high and were super cool. This was probably my favorite one we saw on the trip because it had an interesting rock ledge that extended out over the waterfall which made for a really unique effect. At this point we were crossing off most things that were on my list so we pressed on to Beaver Marsh. It was a cute area but small and no beavers, or pretty much anything besides geese.
Dinner at Covered Bridge
It was dinner time now so we decided to order some Teresa’s Pizza and take it to an old Covered Bridge to eat. It was a nice way to end our fun filled day.
Szalay’s Market
When Saturday came, we only had one more thing left on my list to do. We started out in the morning and stopped at the Farmers Market. Every Saturday in the park they have the market. It was pretty neat to visit and we bought some cute mummy decorated sugar cookies. We then stopped at Szalay’s market which was incredibly busy. People were loading up shopping carts with all types of pumpkins like it was Black Friday. Something interesting about this place is they had swinging tables/gliders for people to sit at and enjoy. It was super cute. We bought some apple sauce, apple butter, pickled asparagus and some dip mixes.
Buttermilk Falls
Buttermilk Falls
We then ventured on to our last planned hike of the trip. This was a five mile round trip hike to two different waterfalls. The first waterfall was Blue Hen Falls and was within the National Park boundaries. The second waterfall I had learned about on YouTube and the instructions were basically to follow the creek for a mile till you get there. There was a social path in the woods but involved various downed trees and crossing the creek several times. For some part of the path we actually hiked in the creek which was fine because we had our boots on. We made it to the waterfall and had it all to ourselves for a decent amount of time. This one was called Buttermilk Falls and is actually outside of the park’s boundaries. The water cascades over shale ledges and people like to climb up it. We both did but it was very slippery. It was a fun way to end our last hike.
After we got back to the car we drove around for a bit checking out the area and then got some more of Teresa’s delicious pizza. This time we ended up eating at a picnic table where a little kids baseball game was going on. Kind of odd but oh well. We decided to take a nap and pack up early to be able to sleep in our own beds for the night. It was pretty cool that we got to do everything we wanted and then some and still had extra time to ourselves. The park was pretty neat and even better that it was within driving distance.
