We planned to go to Cuyahoga Valley National Park to bike on the canal trail. (It is not pronounced the way it looks; the proper pronunciation is Kai-uh-how-guh.) The name is Native American for “Crooked River”. (John wonders if they call the leaders of our country Cuyopoliticans?) The park has exactly 20 miles for biking and over 125 miles of hiking. The bike trail distance is doubtless included in the hiking trail distance. We stopped in at Boston Mills and the Canal Exploration Center the last time we were here. We just walked through the educational centers; we did not hike or bike the trails.

John’s college friend was supposed to join us for biking, but the biking plan transformed in her riding in an air conditioned train and us biking the trail. There were various excuses:

• My bike is buried in the barn
• You would need to drive the truck to carry three bikes
• Bike rental is more expensive than a train ticket
• It is a hot and humid today
• I have only ridden the train at night
• They serve alcohol on the train

All of these things are true, but some probably held more weight than others.

The new plan involved going to the Peninsula Village train depot, dropping her off, and driving to Boston Mills to bike. There have been increasing issues with cars being broken into, so we expected that we would have to go to Boston Mills for their to be enough traffic to be safe. When we got there, the parking lot was busy and full, so we decided it was safe to bike from the lock 29 trailhead instead. The parking lot is right next to the river, so it had some nice views of the river.

There were also some pretty flowers along the riverbank. The first set of Black-eyed Susan Flowers look like they have male pattern baldness. The second set have brown on the inner petal; these are Rudbeckia Hirta, also known as Kelvedon Star.

First, we checked in at the train depot to make sure everything was in order for John’s friend.

Next. we went to the gift shop called Trail Mix. Kate got her cancel stamps, and John asked if he could get a discount on the ice cream. (The answer was no.) Post cards were reasonably priced. All the pretty ones were large, so they would require a forever stamp instead of a postcard stamp.

Not naming anyone, but someone at Cuyahoga Valley has a big caboose … Here is a picture with and without those annoying people that keep getting in the way of our pictures.

After this, we abandoned John’s friend to her 2 hour and 20 minutes of effortless, scenic, and air-conditioned confinement. We waved good-bye, “promised” to pick her up, when the train got back, and drove to her house to loot it. (Not really, but there has probably been a cab/limo/Uber/Lyft crime spree of that nature somewhere.)

These pictures are of the train arriving.

These are of the train waiting at the station.

And the train starting on its 12:20 journey.

We made a pit stop at the bike rental store to get a spare inner tube, but that was a bust. From here, we meandered our way back to the trail to ride south towards Bozum. We chose this route because it was supposed to be up hill, so we could coast back. (Spoiler Alert: it felt like it was uphill both ways.) The bike trail is paved in a few places, but it is primarily crushed limestone. Where the sand has worn away, it can be a bit rough.

This is the trail map at the Lock 29 trailhead. On the map, we are starting about one third of the way up from the bottom, and we are biking downwards on the map. (It feels like less effort when you are biking downwards on the map.)

They have educational and historic signs along the trail, but we did not stop for most of them. This one was near the beginning. It talks about the history of the town and river. Despite the river flooding and damaging the town occasionally, it was a significant economic boon. The addition of a train depot further improved the economic prospects of the town.

And these pictures were at Lock 28. It was called Deep Lock because it was the deepest lock at 14 feet deep. While active, it happily dumped water on crew and passengers, now, it is just a home to bullfrogs.

Just past deep lock, the trail goes under the train tracks through a corrugated metal tunnel with great acoustics for yodeling. Yes, we tested this.

Mostly, we just stopped for water, but we did see some ducks in a canal remnant pond before the beaver marsh boardwalk … board-pedal? Our best guess is that this is an American Black Duck. This would be a new bird, but the cell phone pictures are inadequate to identify it. They also had pretty purple flowers here.

The quarter mile boardwalk goes over the beaver marsh. This land was a car salvage yard, until the 1980s. Sierra Club volunteers cleaned up, and beavers flooded the area with a dam. The area recovered, grew water plants, and it is one of the best areas for viewing wildlife. (A jaunty angle is probably not safe for a helmet.)

We planned to bike to Bozum, but we were getting hot, sweaty, tired, and halfway through our water. We ended up stopping at the Ira trailhead instead. Google Maps believes it is about 4.8 miles from the parking lot of the Lock 29 trailhead to the parking lot of the Ira trailhead. This is close to the distance shown on the map at the Ira trailhead.

We headed back from the Ira trailhead, and we saw a Great Blue Heron in a canal remnant pond only 10 to 20 feet from the path. We only had cell a phone camera, so the heron is not as crisp and detailed as it could be.

We looked for beavers in the Beaver Marsh, but we did not see anything.

Closer to Lock 28, we saw about 6 small turtles on a log in an algae covered canal pond. Amusingly, the turtles were well camouflaged because they were covered in algae too. Sadly, they were too small and far away for pictures. After this, we did not see anything else interesting on the ride.

After we got back to the Lock 29 trailhead, we loaded the bikes on the rack and headed to Boston Mills.

At Boston Mills, Kate got more cancel stamps, and the train with John’s friend on it rolled in. It was just stopping briefly to load kayaks. (People with bikes and kayaks can flag the train down at any station for a cheap one way trip back to their car.) We did get some videos of it arriving here.

After coordinating with John’s friend, we went to the Canal Exploration Center to get the last of the cancel stamps in Cuyahoga Valley National Park.

After the Canal Exploration Center, we returned to Peninsula Village, picked her up, and headed home. Their might have been a hot dog and pizza stop at Sam’s Club, but we did not leave any evidence.