Golden Cuyahoga

A dull gray dawn washed over the soggy campsite. Slowly, reluctantly, I extricated myself from the sleeping bag and embraced the shivery Ohio morning. It’s always a hell of a time waking up when you’re camping, but it makes you stronger. I’ve found that a cold draught of dewy air is a better stimulant than coffee.

I took my shelter down quickly, so that I wouldn’t be tempted to go back to sleep. Soon I would leave this place forever, but before my departure, I decided that I might as well take breakfast on the lake nearby.

There were no paths going down to the water, but there was a slippery bank of mud with a handy network of roots to grab onto. It was a drop of about 20 feet. I eased myself down slowly, taking care not to skid my jeans.

The silence by the lake was perfect; a mist hovered over the water, softening the trees on the far shore. Gnarls of driftwood lay half-submerged above their reflected twins. Behind me, the stands of maples threw off a deep golden light, suffused with what green autumn had not yet stolen.

I poured my cereal in meditative reverie, and slurped each spoonful with thoughtfulness. Much as I enjoyed the solitude, I found evidence of an earlier customer who sought solace with nature here. The other guy had brought a roach clip however, and probably experienced things rather differently than I did.

After I’d finished my meal, I checked out at the ranger station, got in the Mazda and got back on 80. There would be miles to go until I crossed into the far-famed fields of Indiana, but I was not quite done with Ohio yet.

Within about twenty miles, I pulled over for a morning run at Cuyahoga National Park. The tourism brochures I’d picked up at the state line had assured me that this was a place well worth visiting. It piqued my interest to hear that the place was actually laid out with hundreds of miles of trails for bikes and hikes. Needless to say, this was a far cry from my snobby East-Coast perception of Ohio as an unwonderland of suburbs and strip-malls.

And yet, when I’d asked one of the rangers at the campsite what she thought of Cuyahoga Falls, she told me not to bother visiting.

“Did you ever here about the river that was so polluted that it caught fire in the seventies?”

I had missed the connection. The falls, she said were an unimpressive drop and the river itself was an ugly mud color.

What I’d messed up was that Cuyahoga Falls is the name of a town nearby, and it has nothing to do with the national park. It was the falls on the Brandywine River that I wanted.

Of course the nerd in me couldn’t help but notice that the river shares its name with the river in Lord of The Rings. Right at the start of the hobbits’ journey no less.

Should we then choose to stay within the Tolkien trope, I’ll say that the park reminded me the most of Rivendell. Just like what I’d seen on the lakeshore, the leaves on the trees here were green-gold. As the morning sun climbed higher, it burned away the fog and shone in through the leaves. The canopy filtered the light like a vast stained-glass window, one that suffused the forest with a warm radiance.

The fine scent of the living earth rose up from where it had been locked away the night before. I breathed it deeply as I ran

There were indeed paths to explore. I followed the banks of the Brandywine for a while, and then wandered up into some hills. I found a gravel road that led into an empty field where I realized that I was trespassing in someone’s backyard.

After I had satisfied my craving to explore, I wound back to the river and up to Brandywine Falls. There is a slick wooden walkway for the spectators, with stairs leading down to a viewing platform in front of the drop. I took time out to walk out and admire the scene. The falls are about 60 feet tall and are pretty, if not quite at the level of Niagara Falls’ grandeur. It was nice, but I realized that it was getting close to noon and I had already spent far too much of my time enjoying Ohio.