Driving Back: Ohio

We set out back towards home on Monday morning. We had planned a packed day, with us getting to Pittsburgh around 3 with a couple of hours to explore the Heinz Museum (we were staying in a museum right across the street from it), but got off to a rough start with the car's check engine light coming on 30 minutes into the drive. We pulled off at the next exit and Abby found a mechanic who was able to get us back on the road in a little over an hour. Our plan had been to take the first tour of the Rutherford B. Hayes home and presidential library, but we called en route and they were able to accommodate us on a later tour. I really did not want to miss this site, as who knows when we'll be back in Fremont, Ohio!

We had about 30 minutes to check out the museum and library before the house tour. One cool thing was that President Hayes collected signatures from other presidents -- he has one from every single president and his descendants have continued the tradition

I took pictures of a few favorites. Here is Jefferson

Jackson

We started the house tour on the porch, which was his favorite part of the whole property

Since the house stayed in the family until it was sold to the state to make the presidential library, much of it is still original (or able to be restored to original). This is the sitting room as it was in President Hayes' time

Apparently another favorite of his -- the reading tub

The house had no air conditioning, but this huge window on top was used to create aeration

Original hanging lamp in the entry way

Cool library

This room has the only original ceiling

This was part of their presidential china. Many people did not like eating animals off of plates depicting animals.

From the outside

Rutherford and Lucy (and many of their children) are buried here

From Fremont, we headed towards Cleveland, stopping to see Cuyahoga Valley National Park. We knew it would be a short visit from the outset since we were not planning to hike, but we cut back even further because of the delay. As we approached the park, our plan was to see the visitor center and surrounding area and then drive to Brandywine Falls, which had a short 1/2 mile boardwalk to an overview:

There were beautiful flowers all around the visitor center

River overlook

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One of the highlights of the park is a scenic railroad, but to Benji's chagrin it only runs Wednesday-Sunday and we visited on a Monday

Getting a stamp inside the visitor's center

The mighty Cuyahoga

Unfortunately, it started raining as we left the visitor's center. Kevin decided we should still drive towards the falls, but it was absolutely pouring by the time we got there. After sitting in the lot for 10 minutes, he was ready to leave, but Abby and I wanted to wait it out a few minutes more and we lucked into a slight break in the storm where we felt ok to dash out onto the short walk:

Payoff!

It was a short visit to the park, but still a nice taste of it.