Bike Trails, Barn Quilts, Covered Bridges and Buckeyes! Oh My!

July 1 – July 7, 2022

We chose Kenisee Lake RV Campground, located outside of Jefferson, OH to stay at for two reasons.  One, it’s a Thousand Trails campground (which we are members of) and two, it’s only an hour drive to Cuyahoga Valley National Park from Jefferson. Getting to as many national parks as possible is a goal of ours, so this campground was chosen as “home” for our week in the great state of Ohio!  Kenisee Lake was such a great spot!  Not only was it in a great location and part of our membership package, but it had both a live band (High Horse) and DJ Big Country scheduled over the Fourth of July weekend.  It made for fun evenings to stroll down to the pavilion and take in some rock and roll music one night and country music the next!

Ashtabula, Ohio is known as “Ohio’s Wine Country” and, yes, we did see lots of vineyards and wineries, but that wasn’t what made a big impression on us.  Who knows, maybe spending five months in California (which is also very much “wine country”) has left it difficult to impress us with that title!  So, if it wasn’t the wine that stood out to us in this area, what was it?  It was the fantastic bike trails, the 113 barn quilt squares, the 19 covered bridges and of course, the delicious buckeye candies!

Ashtabula County contains 27 miles of the 44-mile-long Western Reserve Greenway trail.  We were able to pick up the trail not far from our campground and ride ten miles of this “rails-to-trails” path into the city of Ashtabula.  Most of the section of trail we were on went through a beautiful wooded area.  

Once we reached the end of the trail in Ashtabula, we ventured through town to Bridge Street in the Historic Ashtabula Harbor.  There we found Marianne’s Chocolate store.  That’s hard to resist!  Being in Ohio, we had to pick up a small box of buckeyes and some fudge managed to find its way back to our camper as well!  Believe me, this fudge is even creamier than Mackinac Island fudge!   

Ashtabula Harbor was once one of the busiest ports on the Great Lakes.  Tales of swindling sailors, freedom-seekers and ladies-of-the-night fill the halls of the buildings that line Bridge Street.  Today, the historic buildings are filled with restaurants, activities and gift shops. Bridge Street crosses the Ashtabula River by means of a lift bridge (built in 1925) shortly before its mouth to Lake Erie.  The bridge’s unique, massive concrete counterweight catches your eye as the bridge lifts every 30 minutes to accommodate boat traffic. This led us to understand why it is named Bridge Street.  Every 30 minutes, traffic backs up on this street as the bridge lifts causing a bit of a traffic jam.

We had worked up an appetite on the bike ride in and needed to fuel up for the return trip!  Briquettes Smokehouse for dinner was our answer.  It, too, is located in one of the historic Bridge Street buildings.  Their patio dining made for perfect viewing of the lift bridge!  Dick enjoyed their “Cleveland Pulled Pork” sandwich which was topped with coleslaw, steak fries and their signature “Maple Mustard” BBQ sauce.  This sauce is made in house from locally sourced real maple syrup and is out of this world! I was a little less ambitious with my meal and stuck to their brisket sandwich which was fall-apart tender and also paired wonderfully with their maple mustard BBQ sauce.  I’m not convinced we burned off all of the calories we consumed, but at least we gave it a good try! 

We had the chance to drive the truck across the Ashtabula lift bridge when we went to Our Lady of Mt. Carmel for Mass on Saturday afternoon.  It was a wonderful church.  I felt oddly at home in the church and it finally struck me that it had several architectural features that reminded me of St. Jude’s in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, which we were members of for 23 years!  The priest gave a wonderful homily on the Dobbs decision which reversed Roe v Wade.  His key point was how this controversial decision leaves much work to be done to support both the mother and the baby. 

We spent one afternoon exploring the nearby town of Geneva-on-the-Lake.  This town continues to be quite the hopping area!  Its main attraction is the Strip that parallels Lake Erie through town.  This strip is filled with arcade shops, lakefront rental cottages and junk food spots. It had its heyday back in the 30’s, but continues to thrive today!  We avoided the arcade shops, but I have to admit a couple of the junk food spots got our attention.  We happened to park directly across from the donut shop and somehow cream-filled and jelly-filled donuts filled our bellies! 

Having been nourished, we ventured off on a walk, strolling the rest of the Strip and continuing further down the road to Geneva State Park.  There, we found a lovely trail that followed the shoreline of Lake Erie and made for some pretty fantastic scenery!  As pretty as it was, eventually we had to turn around and wander back to find the truck, which was parked not only by a donut shop, but also by an ice cream shop.  Good grief, I’m going to be diabetic yet!  What can I say?  It was a hot day!  

A day trip to Cuyahoga Valley National Park left us wishing we had another day to come back for more!  The Cuyahoga River flows through the entire 22 miles of the park and is filled with wildlife and stunning scenery.  More than 50 years ago, however, it was quite a different scene.  This river was so polluted that it actually caught on fire!  There were no signs of wildlife anywhere in the area back then and I can only image the stench!  It was the sad state of this river that inspired both the creation of Earth Day and the Clean Water Act!  It was actually really motivating to compare images from 50 years ago with how the river appears today.  You would never have guessed it could possibly be the same river!  There is hope for this Earth!

Running parallel to the river is the short-lived Ohio and Erie Canal.  The canal opened in 1827 and provided easy transportation for goods both to and from Lake Erie.   During its day, it was quite the scene!  The locks along the canal made for traffic jams as boats (pulled along the canal by mules) waited their turn to navigate through.  By the mid-1800’s, trains made the canal obsolete.  Today, the path the mules used is a delightful biking/hiking trail, used by visitors to the park.  

One of the many locks along the canal.  Can you imagine the traffic jams?

The only hike we had time to take in the park was to Brandywine Falls.  The trail took us for a short span of the Towpath, past the Stanford Home built in 1843, and on to Brandywine Falls.  The falls were beautiful, but word was this was only a trickle of what you see in the spring!  Pro-tip:  Visit waterfalls in the spring!  Next time we come we want to hike several of the other trails the park offers!

On the road back to the campground from Cuyahoga Valley N.P., Dick noticed a road sign for the James A. Garfield historic site.  This prompted another road trip to check it out!  It turns out that eight of our presidents have come from Ohio, one of which was Garfield.  I really never knew anything about this tremendous man before our visit.  President Garfield described himself as, by luck, falling into wonderful situations.  I personally think this sounds very much like a modest man!  James Garfield was the last president to have been born in a simple log cabin.  His father died when he was two years old and he struggled to be able to get an education.  Given time, he eventually became an extremely well-educated man, always striving to learn more.  Despite his determination to nominate John Sherman for the presidency in 1880, Garfield was voted as the Republican nominee.  He became famous for his Front Porch Speeches during his campaign, which was very unusual for the time.  Presidential candidates really didn’t make any public appearances.  Instead, there were campaign spokesmen who would make all of the speeches.  Garfield was such a good orator that he found himself giving his own speeches.  Hundreds of people would take the train and walk to his home where he would talk for a couple of hours to the crowd gathered on his front lawn.  It’s estimated that more than 17,000 visitors came to his home during his campaign to be president.  Sadly, his time in office didn’t last long.  Gun violence and mental health is nothing new.  On July 2, 1881, four months into his presidency, Garfield was shot in the back while walking through a train station.  He survived the gunshot for 80 days and finally succumbed to infection introduced by the doctors’ non-sterile hands and instruments in attempts to remove the bullet.  His wife, Lucretia, expanded their home after his death, creating a library from Garfield’s extensive collection of books.  This is now known as the first presidential library!  In this library is a pietra dura.  This stone mosaic portrait of Garfield was sent to Lucretia Garfield in 1883 by artist H. Bosi (from Florence, Italy) as a memorial gift.  

We also noticed a historical sign in the lawn of a home on the way to our campground.  It so happens that this home in Austinburg, OH was once where Betsy Mix Cowls lived.  Betsy was an abolitionist and was very involved with the Underground Railroad in the area.  She is quoted as warning slave catchers who came to the area trying to capture slaves, “You might as well attempt to get a saint out of Heaven as to get a slave out of Austinburg.”  Man, there are so many great Americans in our history!

Driving from spot to spot during our stay, we noticed quilt squares painted not only on barns, but on houses and businesses too!  It turns out there are at least 113 barn quilt squares scattered around the county.  Of course, there is a driving tour you can take to see of these creations but, with today’s diesel costing $6.00/gallon, we resisted!  We did enjoy the ones we came across, however!

Smolen-Gulf Bridge is the longest covered bridge in the US, spanning 613 feet.

Quilt squares aren’t the only thing scattered across the county.  Ashtabula boasts their 19 covered bridges!  They have both the longest and the shortest covered bridge in the nation!  Again, we resisted getting obsessed with finding all 19 of the bridges, but did make it to several of them!

West Liberty Bridge, built by Vo-Tech students, is the shortest bridge, spanning a whopping 18 feet!

Mechanicsville Bridge - built in 1867 is the oldest

Netcher Bridge

As we were looking for the Mechanicsville Bridge, we hit the jackpot!  Just as luck would have it, the timing was perfect.  It was the end of a fun afternoon of adventure and just across the road from the bridge, we happened to find the oldest tavern in the county!  Grand River Manor was serving up cold ones and also happened to have live music playing in their garden!  A small bribe convinced the vocalist/guitar player to sing/play a little Eagles and yes, we were indeed in our “happy place”!

Road side ditches and flower gardens were filled with chicory (cornflower), black-eyed Susans, and tiger lilies!  Everything this time of year is green and lush! 

An Ohioan we met along our travels told us, “There’s nothing to see in Ohio.”  Sir, I have to politely disagree!

Next up!  Allegheny National Forest, Pennsylvania!