Most of this day was spent riding on the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad. This train runs along the Cuyahoga (KIE-a-hoe-ga) River (w), from Independence, a suburb of Cleveland, to Akron. Most of the route runs through the Cuyahoga Valley National Park (w).
Since we had to drive almost all the way to Cleveland to catch the train, we went ahead and drove all the way to Cleveland, and had lunch at a nice German restaurant called Der Braumeister:
The train ride lasts about three hours, and features an audio narration, with songs. The narration covered some of the same ground as the show we watched on Monday at Roscoe Village, i.e., the story of Ohio's canals and railroads. It also talked about the efforts to preserve and reclaim the Cuyahoga Valley and the heavily polluted Cuyahoga River (the river actually caught fire several times).
Here's a picture of the train:
...and some pictures of things we saw along the way:
The Cuyahoga River
A canal towpath
Indigo Lake
Possibly a section of the old canal?
A lumber company with an interesting name...
A sewer pipe (carrying sewage to a treatment plant, NOT the
river!)
The town of Jaite, formerly a paper mill company town, now the
National Park Headquarters
Beaver Marsh, a good example of reclamation - not long ago, this
was an auto junkyard
Highways, old and new
After the train ride, we drove by the Amish Door one more time, not to eat dinner, but just to buy some snacks from the bakery. We had dinner at Griller's Restaurant:
...a barbecue place near the resort. Notice the star on the front of the building.