July | 2015 | Look Before You Live!

This morning the kids helped our friend’s kids to fix their bikes. They did most of the work themselves, but they did need to call in reinforcements:

We had a great time visiting!

After reluctantly saying goodbye, we drove a short distance to the Canal Exploration Center at Cuyahoga Valley National Park:

The park preserves the Ohio and Erie Canal, which allowed goods to travel freely from the farms and ports of Ohio to other parts of the country. Completed in the 1820s, it transformed Ohio from the poorest state in the Union to one of the wealthiest. The canal’s role in commerce diminished after the 1860s, as newly built railroad networks could transport goods more quickly than canal boats.

To deal with elevation changes along the canal, dozens of locks were built to allow ships to descend or ascend the canal:

The visitor center was very well done:

The kids completed their Junior Ranger workbooks and received their badges and patches:

From the park, we drove east to overnight at Albert Airport near Phillipsburg, PA. Since we seem to be doing Airport camping somewhat frequently, I’ve added it as a camping type to the Camping Type Chart.

See the trip map for today’s drive and our current location.

Today we left Walmart and drove to River Raisin National Battlefield Park, one of only four National Battlefield Parks in the US, and the only one that preserves a battlefield site from the war of 1812. Here, American forces suffered a bitter defeat that ended with all but 30 of over 900 US troops either dead or captured. For American soldiers in subsequent battles, “remember the raisin!” was their battle cry:

There were great dioramas in the visitor center:

To receive their Junior Ranger badges, the kids had to complete a Geocaching activity that involved using GPS to find plaques in the ground that gave coordinates to the next plaque:

The battlefield north of what used to be Frenchtown, where US militia forces battled British troops and their Indian allies:

The visitor center has a garden where crops from the war’s time period are grown:

There was also an extensive dress-up area:

The kids handed in their workbooks and received their badges:

We left the park and drove east to Cleveland, where we overnighted in the driveway of our friends Yaakov and Dalit and their kids, whom we haven’t seen in five years or so. We stayed up much too late catching up!

See the trip map for today’s drive and our current location.

Look Before You Live!

Monthly Archives: July 2015

Day 694: Cuyahoga Valley National Park

Day 693: Remember the Raisin!