Cleveland – October 2016 – Finding Unusual Things in Northern Ohio

In late October we made a trip to Northern Ohio to hit a number of diverse places that had been on the list for some time. First up was the Northern Ohio Railway Museum. Located in Lodi on a two mile section of the historic Cleveland, Southwestern & Columbus Railway right-of-way, the Museum has over forty of streetcars and other railway equipment in various states.

Most of the cars are old Cleveland RTA cars, a few in the barns have been restored.

The museum folks permitted me to send my newest toy, a drone, up for a couple of aerial photos.

In Hinkley we found Worden’s Ledges, a natural rock formations comprised of sandstone called Sharon conglomerate, were gradually carved out by quick-flowing bodies of water that emptied into an inland sea that covered Ohio over 300 million years ago.

Some of these ledge formations on the Worden Homestead contain artistic carvings of various faces, names, dates, a ship, various religious carvings, and even a fourteen-foot-long sphinx. Faces depicted include Presidents George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, legendary baseball catcher Ty Cobb, and a portrait of what seems to be Hiram Worden made them sometime between 1945 and 1955.

For lunch this day we stopped at Szalay’s Farm Market near Peninsula in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. A large farm that grows a massive amount of sweet corn my choice there is a hot dog from a local butcher and a sweet tea. Situated next to the Towpath Trail it was packed on this beautiful sunny October Saturday.

From there we went up to Euclid to the National Cleveland Style Polka Hall of Fame, founded in 1987 by musicians and leaders of Slovenian community, the most famous being Frankie Yankovic.