Saturday was Mer’s day, and after a mellow start to the day, we headed west of Akron. It was a beautiful day, and Mer wanted to go for a hike out of our 60 Hikes Within 60 Miles of Cleveland book. The national parks were all closed due to the funding issues going on in Washington, so Mer picked a county park, which was still open. She picked the Allardale County Park, which was private land that was donated by a couple about thirty years ago and has become quite a nice little park.
For a small park, Allardale has a couple of impressive hills, including a sledding hill. The path through the park is both paved and grass, and one side trail we took was all grown-up woods, and the path was just a forest trail, including a small ford over a stream. None of it was breathtaking, but it was pretty, especially the overlook at the top of the big hill that looks out over a field and a treeline. It took us over an hour to walk the whole park, and while there were other people around, we often had the trail to ourselves. It was great to get outside on such a fine day.
In the evening, Mer took me up to the east side of Cleveland, to Case Western University. After a small search for a parking lot, we managed to find the on-campus theater for which we were looking, to go see the university’s production of Betty the Yeti. I know – I had the same thought of “Huh?” Mer had decided to gamble and go to see a production we had never seen nor even heard of.
It was a decent pick. Betty is set in the Pacific Northwest, and focuses on five characters representing the logging industry, environmentalists, and park rangers. The author added in a yeti for good measure as an endangered species, and he went at it. It is a funny play, and the author made sure to poke fun at all of the characters, and he made sure to turn things on their heads with a logger wanting to protect the Yeti and an environmentalist wanting to get rid of her because she was not useful to “the cause.” It was funny and moderately thought-provoking without being heavy-handed. The production was a little uneven at times as far as acting goes, but the actors were all competent, with the lead logger being quite good. I had a good time, and enjoyed being out on the town with Mer. We also got to see a new-to-us venue by going to Case Western.
