July 2024 – Page 2 – RVing With a Purpose

The Blueberry Patch

Thursday, July 25, 2024

We left Cuyahoga National Park on Monday afternoon (7/22/24) headed back to Middlebury, IN for a visit and decided to stop for the night at The Blueberry Patch, a Harvest Hosts site in Mansfield, OH. This turned out to be one of our favorite Harvest Hosts stays. It is a 130 acre blueberry farm with restaurant, bakery and gift shop, as well as a U-pick farm.

With these delicious looking berries, we can understand why there was a steady stream of people coming in to pick them.

Nicest gift shop we have seen at a Harvest Host site

Some of our purchases

We had a restful night listening to bull frogs and the resident donkey.

As we were preparing to leave the we noticed the Gorman Nature Center was about a mile away and had hiking trails.

Since we were going to be driving most of the day we stopped by there on our way out and hiked for a while in the cool morning air.

Cuyahoga Valley National Park

Wednesday, July 24, 2024

After a good night of rest on Saturday night July 7/27 we departed Erie, PA headed to Cuyahoga Valley National Park. We were less than two hours away from a National Park we had never visited, so of course that’s where we headed Sunday morning. CVNP began as a national recreation area in 1974. It became a national park in 2000. The park includes 33,000 acres between the cities of Cleveland and Akron Ohio. The park also lies within the Ohio and Erie Canalway. The Ohio & Erie Canal Towpath Trail is the path where, from 1827 to 1913, mules pulled canal boats up and down the historic Ohio & Erie Canal. Today’s trail follows the historic towpath as closely as possible. The trail is 101 miles. Lots of interesting things to explore. We drove to the main visitor center, Boston Mill, and immediately noticed a big difference from most national parks we have visited. CVNP is very much an urban park. There are many businesses and communities scattered throughout the national park area. The area around the Boston Mill center was very crowded on Sunday. The parking lots were full. When we were able to get to the center for maps and information, we were told the parking lot at the Brandywine Falls (one of the most popular features in the park) trailhead was full and closed. We also learned that the train tour of the valley (Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad) was cancelled due to some mechanical issues. Oh well, we are flexible, and we love hiking. We decided to hike the Ledges trail which reminded us of the trail at Palisades Park in Oneonta, AL. You hike down to the base of the rock walls and follow the rock walls around the loop and then hike back up. It was a pretty easy 2.25 mile hike that was very nice.

The Ice Box Cave is one of the popular features on the trail. It is closed to protect the bats.

The Ledges Hike summary. We didn’t hurry.

We also hiked out to Beaver Marsh, which is a wet land area. There were some huge snapping turtles in the lake and lots of birds to observe. There was also an old lock there that was part of the Ohio and Erie Canal system. Before calling it a day we took the short walk out to the Everett Covered Bridge. For those that may not know, we have some great, old, covered bridges in our home county in Alabama so when given the opportunity when we’re traveling, we always stop at covered bridges. Thanks to iOverlander we found a nice place to park for the night just outside the national park. Monday morning, we headed to the Canal Exploration Center at the north end of the National Park. Nice drive. Unfortunately, the center was closed but outside we found what we really went there to see – an old manually operated lock (boat elevator). While we were in the parking lot setting our next route, a piece of foam padding from a bicycle carrier rolled across the parking lot towards us from a car a few feet away. When we grabbed it and took it back to the owner, we found out the man was interested in seeing our van. He retires in a year and wants to start traveling. (His wife had just told him good-naturedly “Don’t go over there and bother them!”) This led to a wonderful conversation about purposeful retirement and NOMADS Mission Volunteers. We left them with a brochure and our contact information. Another “God Wink” and another seed planted.

Lock 38 is one of the locks or “boat elevators” that had been restored to show how they worked.

All in all, we enjoyed the CVNP. It’s different and can be crowded – especially on weekends. There is lots to see and do and we certainly didn’t have time to do it all. We will need to visit again.

Mount Morris, NY

Tuesday, July 23, 2024

We left Letchworth State Park Saturday morning, July 19, after a wonderful visit. Beautiful park, as was Watkins Glen. We never knew the state of New York was so pretty. Lots of woods, trees, and trails. Outside of the big city traffic and crowds it’s a great, restful place to visit.

Just a few miles from Letchworth, is the little town of Mount Morris. One of the town’s claims to fame is that it is the birthplace of Francis Bellamy, the author of the original Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag. His childhood home is located on Main Street as is a mural commemorating the Pledge of Allegiance. So, we decided to check out the mural and town. While walking around downtown, we spotted a nice-looking steeple a few blocks away and decided to take a look.

The Mount Morris mural we stopped to see

Another mural in Mount Morris that we appreciated

We found what was previously a beautiful gothic Episcopal church but the sign outside said, Lamplighter Ministries. While we were outside admiring the church a gentleman walked up and asked if we would like to see inside. Of course, we said yes since we like to tour old churches. When we entered the church, we were surprised to see in addition to all the usual accoutrements the walls of the sanctuary were lined with bookcases full of books – all hard cover. We were taken into a room behind the sanctuary that was full of book publishing equipment. A side room was a radio/pod casting studio. The gentleman asked us if we were born again (YES) and told us his name is Mark. We went next door to meet some of the people who work with him. He had to leave to attend a funeral and we stayed and visited with one of the employees. We learned that the gentleman was Dr. Mark Hamby. Dr. Hamby is the founder and president of Lamplighter Ministries International. There were many more books lining shelves in this building. The books are for all age groups from children through 99 years old. Lamplighter Ministries, according to their catalog publishes a family collection of Christ-like, character-building books. From the Lamplighter website – “Dr. Hamby has given new life to these 17th – 19th century rare stories which inspire readers of all ages to adopt the godly virtues that have now been etched into their awakened conscience.” We were gifted one of their audio theater recordings for us to listen to while driving. We were told they are used in a number of states’ home-schooling programs. Everyone we met there seemed to believe in the ministry of “Building Christlike Character One Story at a Time.” Click on the link above and check it out – and let us know what you think. So, a beautiful church, a “chance” encounter with a very interesting gentleman – another God Wink?

When we first entered we thought this congregation must read a lot.

After leaving Mount Morris, we headed to Erie, PA for the night. However, as we love to do when we travel in BB, in the small town of Randolph, we stopped at a very nice produce market. We bought fresh cherries, blueberries, corn and a tomato. We have been enjoying it all. Love fresh produce!! We headed on to the same Cracker Barrel we visited on the way to Bath. Another quiet night with another enjoyable breakfast after a good night of sleep.

We had never seen yellow zucchini before. We laughed at the “homegrown” part of the sign because they also had the bananas labeled as “homegrown” and they had Chiquita labels.

Letchworth State Park

Monday, July 22, 2024

After enjoying our extended time at the Huddle and Bath, Thursday July 18 was our day to say our final goodbyes. We did our usual morning walk, (try to get about 5,000 steps in the morning before it gets too hot) said goodbye and made our way to Letchworth State Park in Castile, NY. We arrived before lunch and really didn’t know what to expect. We had no reservations but had learned from some friends that it was a great park, and we would probably need a couple of days to do it justice. Cost to enter park $10.00 which we had to pay before we could go see if there were any camp sites available. We made our way to the campground check-in to see if there was any possibility of getting a site for a night or two. We really were not very hopeful. This is when the God winks began. We walked up to one of the two windows to get some additional information about the camping and the park. Of course, early in the conversation the ranger asked us where we were from (Seems we talk a little differently than most of his customers.) Surprise, the ranger’s grandmother lived in Eva, AL, which is just a few minutes from where Anne worked at Cullman Internal Medicine. So after visiting with the ranger for a bit, we learned that even though usually you must make online reservations at this park, they do usually have a few walk-up sites available after 3pm. So, we could wait and see if maybe there was anything available at 3:00. After a little more conversation about the park and things we should do there, the ranger said, “we have a hidden site that I can let you have for two nights.” Seems the park keeps a few sites off their rental list to use for emergencies, VIPs or when they must move someone from another site for some reason. What are the chances that we would “happen” to walk up to a ranger in New York whose grandmother lived in Eva and we could have great conversation about the small German town of Cullman? God wink one! Anne began giving him all the necessary registration information when Max began talking to another camping couple who were in an Ekko RV. By the time Anne completed the registration process, Max was in deep conversation about NOMADS with the couple. They were newly retired (1 month) and are looking for some purpose for their travels. By the end of the conversation, they had a brochure and instructions on signing up. God wink two! Don’t know if they will join but we just keep sowing seeds. God just asks that we be faithful in sharing Him with others.

This campground has a nice camp store – the only one we have seen that has a produce and baked goods stand.

After going to our wonderful camp site, we went to the visitor center for maps and to see the displays.

New York State Parks are celebrating 100 years now.

As we were entering the Visitor Center, we stopped to talk to a maintenance man who was hanging a sign. He was very proud of this map box he had built to look like the building. If you look carefully, you can see he embedded “LSP” in rocks on the side. He also seemed pleased (and somewhat surprised) that someone would stop to thank him for his work.

We know someone who needs this bench on their front porch.

From there we began our viewing of some of the larger of the many waterfalls in Letchworth. First, we visited the upper falls, 70 feet tall. Part of the beauty of that waterfall comes from the arched rail bridge over the Genesee River. We climbed up to the rail bridge where we saw some of the remains of the old bridge. However, for those of you who climbed the Watkins Glen steps, this was even more steps! Next we hiked down to middle falls. This one, 107 feet high and most afternoons you can see a beautiful rainbow in the mist. Letchworth is pretty smart because they have an ice cream vender between the upper and middle falls. Most of you know – we hike for ice cream! Oregon blackberry cheesecake ice cream is mighty fine. Lower falls were a little harder to find. Another 70 foot water fall. After all that hiking it was time to return to our camp site. It was a long and active day – 8.27 miles and 22,464 steps. Time for bed.

Upper Falls with the arch bridge that was designed to not detract from the beauty.

The Arch Bridge is the third bridge to cross the river just above the Upper Falls. The first was a wooden trestle that burned. The second was steel but had pilings in the river. Some remains of the second bridge are kept on the property for viewing.

The Letchworth house, which is now an inn, was built so Middle Falls could be seen from the front yard.

Canada geese feeding at the top of Middle Falls

The Mount Morris dry dam is only to control flooding on the Genesee River. Hopefully, they have time to move the earth moving equipment before it starts holding back water again.

One of many scenic views along Park Road

The remainder of our time at the park, Friday and Saturday, we visited the Nature Center, Museum, the Mt Morris Dry dam, hiked some shorter trails and revisited the Upper and Middle falls and of course the ice cream vendor.