Virtual vacation: Day 12

I love National Parks, National Monuments, National Seashores: in fact, any spot of natural beauty will draw me more than most other sights. Don’t even mention “typical” tourism highlights: amusement parks, rides of any sort, sports activities, hanging at a beach, or what’s euphemistically called “visiting the quaint shops of the [insert name here] district”. My idea of horror would be to wake up on board a two-week Carnival cruise on a ship which boasts thousands of guests. I travel to travel, which means being somewhere different from where you normally are. Places of unique natural wonder only exist where they are–one must travel to see them. Cities which superficially resemble all others boast residents who have uniquely combined their histories. One needs to just be with these peoples to understand them, their cities, their culture. This seems simple and logical to me. What seems illogical: spend thousands of dollars to take a family to some Vacation Destination for golf, tennis, horseback riding, shopping, dancing, and just lounging at the pool. You can do that at home for far fewer dollars.

Case in point: In 1997 I announced to my Philadelphia-area co-workers that I planned to quit and move my new wife with me to my hometown, Spokane, WA. Shortly before my last day, a 50-year-old co-worker asked what route I would be driving. I said we would drive west on the Pennsylvania Turnpike through Pittsburgh. This isn’t the most efficient route, necessarily, and he asked my why I was going that route. “Because I’ve never been to Pittsburgh,” I replied. His response remains vivid 26 years later: “So? I’ve lived here all my life. I’ve never been to Pittsburgh.” Pittsburgh lies 300 miles west of Philadelphia. He recently had returned from a fishing trip to Utah. I’m still dumbfounded. How can you not want to experience what represents the cultural definition of your state?

All of this represents my lead-in to Day 12 when we headed south from Cleveland to the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. Cuyahoga shares a background to other Eastern national parks because Congress carved it out of settled areas. Great Smoky Mountains, Acadia, and Shenandoah among others share that background because Europeans settled there centuries before the concept of national parks became realized in America. The photo below illustrates that. As the park was being formed–I can’t remember if it had been formally established or if this was the lead-up to it–a car junkyard existed in part of it. Many thousands of dollars were needed to clean it up. Heels were dragged. But the beavers tired of our politics, built a dam, and flooded the entire area. Problem solved–except all those automotive corpses still reside beneath the surface of the waters.

Before visiting the Beaver Marsh, we received a great introduction to the park by one of the rangers at the Boston Mill Visitors Center. He directed us to two specific destinations: Brandywine Falls and the Beaver Marsh. The falls were lovely:

Temperatures weren’t devastating but the humidity had us sweating as we hiked from the viewpoint (from where I took the photo above) around the top of the falls by way of the bridge at the top of the photo, and then along the north bank of the Brandywine Creek. The trail leads down and down until you walk along the banks of the creek. Some (not us) take a “side trail” to the creek and wander barefoot in its cool waters. The trail crosses the creek and then heads back to the parking lot. Unfortunately for people in their mid-60’s and in poor physical shape, the trail up requires a lot. We paused several times to catch our breaths (and maybe let the feeble breeze evaporate some of the sweat staining our shirts). We regained the comfort of the modern air-conditioned vehicle and drove to the Beaver Marsh.

Beaver Marsh offers one of my favorite environments: still waters, marshes, lily pads, and the hidden inlets where long-legged waders lurk. Here’s one:

When we got to the marsh proper, we were welcomed by a bird I haven’t seen much in North Carolina:

Before we encountered Mister Blackbird, we had witnessed a few duck-like birds which have defied my ability to identify them. I’ve looked at Audubon and Cornell using multiple sources for each, and I don’t see ducks which look exactly like this. I think they are some type of teal, but…maybe one of y’all might know?

We gratefully escaped the humid hotness to the air-conditioned comfort of Mr. Lincoln, fueled up, and after a short break enjoyed a pub meal at Flannery’s Pub, an Irish-styled establishment.