Last Saturday was “my” day in our rotating date days. I had a very full day planned.

“I” took Mer out to breakfast in the nearby town of Hudson. I say “I” took her out in that I drove us there. We are pretty much broke after our summer o’ excess with two mortgages, so I did not feel like we could eat out. Mer then told me she had a little cash squirreled away, so breakfast was on! We went to a restaurant we had never been before, creatively called “Hudson’s.” It was cute inside, and they served breakfast until 1:00, which was good since we got there about 12:30. We both had breakfast egg-sausage wraps and a cinnamon roll. The cinnamon rolls were not in the Anne Sather’s class of roll, but they were still very good.

Happily fortified, I took Mer slightly northward to Brandywine Falls in the Cuyahoga Valley National Recreation Area. I did not even know these falls existed until a few weeks ago when Shannon, Jo, and James were in town. When we went to a sports store, I picked up a brochure on the Valley, and it mentioned the falls. We live about 25 minutes from them.

The falls are easy to get to – there is a short path that leads to an observation deck. The falls are not super-duper huge or anything, but they are good sized (about 60 feet, I think), and they are very pretty. And it was a perfect day out, so we had a good time watching the water. We then wandered back up the bath and across a bridge over the falls so we could go check out a nearby B and B that looks very promising after a Riordan financial recovery. As a bonus, there was a trail next to the B and B, so we had to take it.

The path was next to the gorge that the stream flowed into, and it was a little nerve wracking at first. Then the path started going down. And down. And down. Toward the bottom, we ran into a ranger who told us the path did loop around back to the falls, including getting to cross the river on stones placed in the creek bed. If that doesn’t say good times, I don’t know what does.

We found the ford and crossed over. We made it safe and dry, but then we had to start going up. And up. And up. We had some help in the form of stairs, but we were both huffing and puffing fairly well by the top. The nice day turned hot when you had to climb. Still, it was a good walk in pretty surroundings.

We got back to the car, and I turned southwards again, but I drove past home. How exciting! The day was continuing. I drove south to near the center of Cuyahoga Falls, and I turned into a Metro Park called the Gorge Metro Park. C’mon! Gorge! I had been meaning to check it out for years, and Saturday was the magic day.

We parked the car and started toward the trail. The sign indicated it was a 3.6-mile out-and-back, but I was okay with that. Mer was game even after expressing surprise since we had already done 2-3 miles in the earlier park. Off we went. I can’t say it was the prettiest walk I have ever taken. The Cuyahoga River on one side was very nice and serene (it is wide at this point because of a dam), but the trail existed as a run for high voltage power lines, which were overhead. Still, not too terrible. Nice walk with good company.

I was sad when we got to the dam. Here was a fairly big hydroelectric dam, and there was no observation point. (There was no legal observation point – I looked at the gate to the walkway, and it was not locked, but did have a “No Trespassing” sign on it.) The bank was overgrown thickly with trees, so I could not see more than a glimpse of the dam. We pressed on. The trail was easy and flat, but after the dam the river had literally dropped away and was hard to see through the trees and down 100 feet. I still had not seen anything resembling a clear sight line on a gorge, so that was frustrating. We did stumble across a huge bridge near the end of the trail (which is called the Highbridge Trail, by the way). I like bridges, and it was cool to be right under one.

After the bridge the trail split, and we had the option to go down stairs, so down we went. There was a second set of stairs. We went down those. There was a third set of stone steps, and Mer was wondering why there was two sets of stairs in a “Y” pattern near the top, close together. I joked that it was a WPA project and they needed to invent work. After I looked the park up on line, it turns out that I was right! 🙂

Anyway, the stairs took us back to the riverside, where we hooked up with another trail. We strolled along enjoying the scenery. After a few minutes, the trail left the river, and I was worried about time, so we turned around. We went back past the stairs in hopes of getting a good view of the bridge. We wandered until we came to a small official looking building that stank to the sky. Turns out it was a small sewer station. Sigh. We turned around and went back up and up and up and back to the car. I think we walked 6-7 miles on our combined outings.

I continued “my” day by heading south toward Canton. Yes, the date day (edging on toward date night) included a movie at the $1.25 theater! I has seen a preview there a few weeks ago when I went to see Iron Man, and even though I had never heard of it, it looked good. Imagine!  A movie preview doing what previews are supposed to do. How much of a risk could it be for $2.50 total? So, we went to see Hancock, a movie starring Will Smith as a superhero whom people don’t like because he is such a jerk. I had figured it was a parody, but it had some thoughtful moments in it. It is not deep, but it is a good film all the way through, and I highly recommend it for you NetFlix-using readers.

After the movie, the fun was not over! I had grabbed our $25 gift certificate to Friday’s, and so I took Mer there (to the Canton branch). We had a welcome meal (the breakfast wraps had worn thin after 10 hours and 7 miles). The only surprise came when I got the bill back after the gift card. Turns out we had used $19 of the value already, so my near-free meal wasn’t. Ooops.

It was a good day!

(On doing more research, it turns out all the really cool stuff at the Gorge Metro Park is on the other side of the river. Who knew? Next trip….)