Saturday, August 8, 2020

Some One-and-a-Half Tank Trips

As we all know, any further major travel is out for 2020. Lady Adventurer and I are planning a medium-length road trip later on, but plans for that are still being finalized. In the meantime, we're doing some shorter one and two-night road trips, in which we don't venture too very far from home. We want to explore a bit, but we mostly want to stay safe. Here is the tale(e) of some of those short Summer 2020 trips.


Geneva

We love Geneva. Went for a long hike in Geneva State Park, then hit some wineries. These are Ohio's best, and this time we hit some familiar ones (Harpersfield, M Cellars) and one new one: Laurentia. It was as good as the rest. On the way home the next morning, we drove along the lake, stopping at some parks and enjoying the scenery. One place where we spent some time is Euclid Beach. We hadn't been there since we were kids.

Euclid Beach

Euclid Beach

Euclid Beach

Geneva St. Park

Headlands


Sandusky

With Cedar Point and the water parks closed, Sandusky was a ghost town. That actually made it a nice place to visit. After stopping at Marblehead, we visited a couple wineries, including Gideon Owen, formerly Mon Ami, for lunch. Once again, we drove home along the lake the next morning. One park we stopped at is Lakeview Beach in Lorain. It was quite impressive, and we vowed to return.

Lakeview Beach

Lakeview Beach


Hocking Hills

Four hikes in two days. And some of them were fairly difficult. Conkles Hollow was one we hadn't done in the past. It was the best hike - maybe in the whole state. The others were more familiar, but they were nice as well: Rock House, Ash Cave, and Cantwell Cliffs. Cantwell was very difficult, and we'd done it recently, so we cut that one short.

Conkles Hollow

Ash Cave


Ash Cave
Cantwell Cliffs



Erie

Now we're getting adventurous: two nights away from home, rather than one like the previous trips. We like Erie, especially wonderful Presque Isle State Park: the marvelous peninsula jutting out into Lake Erie.

On the way up, we stopped to hike at Erie Bluffs State Park. It's on the lake, just past the Ohio Border. Nice views, but surprisingly steep hills for the hike. We also hiked at Scott Park in Erie, and did several shorter walks at Presque Isle. Did some major relaxing on the beach there as well.

The other activity for this trip was winery visitation. We went to several, and the wines have certainly improved since the last time we did this about a decade ago. The Geneva, Ohio area wines still seem better, however.

Erie Bluffs St. Park

Presque Isle

Presque Isle

Presque Isle

Breakfast picnic on the beach at Presque Isle

Conneaut on the way home