June 30- July 6, 2019 State #45 Ohio. Only 5 left! One week here.

Francey wanted to experience traveling in the RV so she moved with us to Cleveland, OH.

Punderson State Park

We actually stayed 45 minutes outside of Cleveland at Punderson State Park, in Newbury, OH.

On Saturday, when we arrived, we signed up for a free Sup’ing (stand up paddle boarding) program on the 150 acre Lake Punderson. We were the only ones that signed up so it was nice and peaceful. We had the whole lake to ourselves.

Only downside was all the Aphids. When we were in Washington last May we were surrounded by white Aphids because of the Beechnut trees. Well, we are near Beechnut trees in this state park and the aphids are numerous. At least they don’t bite.

The Manor House, across from our RV park, is a lodge with a pool and boardwalk around the lake. We looked for deer and beaver on our walk but didn’t find any. We did spot them later in the week just driving around.

The state park had its own golf course so Chris took each of the girls out one evening after work to play a round. I had the opportunity to have one-on-one time with each of them as well. Mackenzie chose to go fishing out on the kayak and then swimming at the resort pool. Abby chose to go to the archery range, swimming and watching a show together.

This was the first campground that had an archery range. Abby has been interested in archery since Williamsburg so we drove to Fin Feather Fin Outfitters and bought her and Mackenzie a bow and arrows so they could practice this week. Abby really enjoyed her time out on the range.

Mackenzie and I didn’t have any luck fishing but we enjoyed the peacefulness of our trip on the lake.

We had a lot of fun in the pool.

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

We had read that when visiting Cleveland this was a must see. It was a Sunday morning so the city was pretty empty. We found free street parking and walked. On the way we passed a giant Stamp sculpture.

We ate an early lunch at the Winking Lizard. It’s a chain out here with huge portions of bar time food. They do have free popcorn:)

Luckily, it was included in our ASTC membership because otherwise it’s quite expensive. They even let Francey in on free on our membership.

What an amazing place to learn about the history of music, Legends of Rock, and learn to play different instruments. They had just opened the Garage Band exhibit for the first time the day we were there. The girls loved taking time to learn a few notes on the electric guitar and how to play the drums. They have little booths with how-to videos to follow along with. We also had a lot of fun in the pinball machine game room. It was filled with music themed pin ball machines and with your wristband you receive free tokens.

When we were reading all about the Beatles an employee walked up to the girls and gave them a collectible gold Beatles coin.

Francey and the girls stayed home to watch the Mary Poppins movie while Chris and I had a date night! We ate at Warren’s Spirited Kitchen. They have a unique spin on classic dishes. The cheese fondue came with roasted root vegetables. I loved the olive oil infused with Rosemary so much so that I asked if I could buy some. We drove out to a lovely state park to watch the sunset. It was actually right across the border of Pennsylvania. We drove through beautiful peaceful Amish country to get there.

Francey took us to eat lunch before she flew home. We tried Bob Evans (we have only eaten there years ago with my brother). Bob Evans was founded in 1946 in Rio Grande, Ohio. 

Cuyahoga National Park

The girls and I went to Cuyahoga National Park to explore a bit and get more Junior ranger badges to add to the collection. We started at the Boston Store Visitor Center (which was undergoing renovations). They had sports activities in the green space behind the VC. We played softball for a bit before heading to the see Bridal Veil Falls. That seems to be a popular name for waterfalls across this country. Yosemite, Niagara, and here to name a few.

We walked along the Towpath of the Erie and Ohio Canal, ran down a trail to a covered bridge and tried spotting frogs we heard croaking among the Lilly pads.

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We spotted one frog.

July 4th in Cleveland

On July 4th, Chris had off all day so we headed down to the Great Lakes Science Center (free with ASTC). We parked in their garage with the intention of staying parked there all day and roaming around until the fireworks started.

There was a focus on celebrating the 50th anniversary of the first Moon landing, which is on July 20th.

We stayed at the science museum until they closed at 5:00pm then headed over to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Even though we had been here on Sunday, we decided to visit again because we could get in for free and they were open until 9:00pm. Mackenzie had begged us to go back to play drums again so she was thrilled.

After pin-ball games and playing instruments in ‘The Garage’ they discovered a new exhibit we missed the other day. They were able to create a band name and logo and print out stickers with them. Mackenzie’s was The Savage Llama and Abby’s was Rouge Princess. A band name says a lot about a person doesn’t it?

It worked out that we could stay parked in the garage all day. We found a Mexican restaurant for dinner right on the marina next to a big green space to watch the fireworks. It was called Nuevo Modern Mexican and Tequila Bar. Naturally we had to try their margaritas. All the food we tried had a modern twist. We tried a sampler of different guacamole’s; house, habanero jelly and peach with feta and prosciutto .

After dinner we walked back to the Jeep to get our chairs and blankets.

We played a trivia game while we waited and someone was passing out free popsicles. The fireworks over Lake Erie were great but we could have used music. Chris found a station on Pandora but the city should have had some piped in around the marina.

We got this picture with the Cleveland sign while the sun was setting. The All star game was starting in a few days. There were banners everywhere advertising it.

We spent all week watching Toy Story 1, 2 and 3 leading up to the new one, Toy Story 4 at the theaters. It had been a long time since we had watched these, I don’t even think the girls really remembered much of them. We had recorded them all the TV so they had fun pop up bubbles that were so funny.

When we were walking out of the theater we saw the advertisement for the Addams Family and just had to take a picture! Snap, Snap.