The "Tornado-Trip" to Cuyahoga Valley

A flooded and roiling Cuyahoga River

Wow, this trip has quite a story.  We were hoping to go to Cuyahoga Valley National Park during fall break 2024 instead of spring break 2025, but we just weren't able to make it happen.  And in some ways, it would have been better if we had, because I'm sure the valley is just so much more beautiful in the fall when the leaves are changing colors rather than in the spring when the trees are still mostly bare of leaves.  But Cuyahoga in the spring had its own charm, mostly due to the fact that major storm system (including an EF-1 tornado, more on that later) ripped through the lower Great Lakes region immediately prior to our departure from Chicago, dumping massive amounts of rain throughout central Indiana and northern Ohio (more on that later, too).  And during the trip we talked to a park photographer who insisted that Cuyahoga Valley is a place that has unique beauty during all four seasons.  And now, after having been there, I can see why.

We departed on Wednesday afternoon after I got off work, planning to drive about 4 hours to visit my parents in western Ohio.  I had checked the weather a couple days previous and knew that a major storm system was going to come through, but that the worst of it would pass on Tuesday instead of Wednesday.  The forecast was predicting rain and cold over the weekend, which wasn't ideal, but the weather certainly seemed nowhere near severe enough to warrant canceling the trip.  We would just have to deal with some rain.  And so we went!

It was almost dark by the time we were out of the Chicago metro area, and we could see lightning in front of us for much of the evening.  We drove through rain of various amounts, but again, nothing worrisome.  In fact, I really didn't think anything about the weather until we were on US Hwy 30 just outside Bourbon, IN.  It was completely dark by this point, and I could see a couple police cars up ahead with their lights flashing.  Traffic was slowing but hadn't stopped, so I figured the police were cleaning up an accident.  Cars in front of me were going around the cop cars and continuing on.  By the time I got up there a policeman was outside motioning with his flashlight for cars to exit the highway, so I did.  As I was exiting I would see the taillights of a long string of cars stopped on the highway for some reason that I couldn't see from my vantage point.  I got off the highway and turned south to take a detour through the town of Bourbon and eventually work my way back to the highway ahead of the traffic jam, whatever it was.

As we drove through downtown Bourbon, I could see the power was off to the town because all the street lights were out.  My GPS directed me to take the main east-west street out of town.  But once I made that turn, I could see that there were more police cars and fire trucks all over the place.  So I turned off and started threading my way through the maze of side streets until I could get back to the main drag out of town heading east.  And that was when I started to see what had happened.  My headlights caught major trees uprooted and toppled, huge multi-pronged branches fallen down across streets and vehicles and rooftops, portions of buildings missing and debris all over, and people with flashlights scrambling like mad with tarps and tools in the pouring rain trying to cover damaged roofs.  Multiple power lines were down, which is why traffic wasn't getting through town.  [I didn't find out until the next day that a tornado had hit the town of Bourbon about an hour before we drove through there.]. For a while there I wasn't sure that we would be able to get out of town!  Eventually I made my back to the center of town, and by that point the convoy of traffic coming from the highway had found the best detour route by going south of town about 5 miles and then cutting east.  I pulled in the line and eventually got back to the highway just fine, but getting around the tiny town of Bourbon took about an hour!  We made it to our B&B quite late (past midnight) but none the worse for wear, and we all collapsed in sleep.

The next day and a half was spent at out B&B in Willshire, OH visiting with my parents and some of my siblings with their families, and we had a great time catching up with all of them!  We ate a late lunch on Friday then piled in the car to continue the 3-hour drive to Cleveland.  I had wanted to camp this trip, but it was too early in the season so I rented a cheap Vrbo in the city.  In fact, it almost felt like camping because the place was a cozy studio apartment in the attic of an old house.  The whole place had short, sloped ceilings with a tiny fridge, tiny electric stove, tiny bathroom, tiny table, etc.  And it worked out for the best, because after so much rain camping would have been pretty miserable.  So at least we were always warm and dry, even though the entire trip we took turns sleeping on beds and sofas.

One of the main attractions of the national park is the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad, which we learned is the only railroad that operates inside any of the national parks.  I had tickets for us to take the National Park rail tour, and I had even paid a little extra so that we could sit in the glass-ceiling "dome car."  Well, we slept in on Saturday and then made our way to the train station to catch the 11:15 train.  The train itself was old but fascinating, and the views from the dome car were pretty spectacular.  However, there wasn't very much ventilation up there, so it was pretty hot and stuffy.  Nevertheless, we were enjoying the first 45 minutes of our train ride when we reached the northern terminus of the rail line and were waiting for the train to turn around and head the other direction.  Suddenly, a conductor came up and told us that the rails were flooded at the south end of the park, so the train was going to be parked immediately until further notice.  So we all had to get off the train and wait for a charter bus to come take us back to wherever our cars were parked, which was going to be about an hour!  Also, there wasn't a proper rail station, only benches under a canopy.  So we could have found a dry spot to sit down, but we decided to walk around and explore a bit while we waited.  And we found a really cool chocolate shop where we bought some exquisite chocolate, so that was an unexpected perk!

My phone camera was still wet! (obvs)

The buses came and took us back to our car which was at the train depot in the middle of the park.  Before driving off, we went in the big gift shop that was next to the train depot and bought all our souvenirs.  Then we made a plan for the rest of the day.  It was still raining off and on, so we decided to drive to as many places as we could and save the hiking for Sunday morning.  Our first stop was Brandywine Falls, which is more-or-less the centerpiece of the park.  It's a 60-foot water fall on one of the major tributaries to the Cuyahoga River, and this was the primary benefit of going to the park immediately after such a major storm.  I talked to a park photographer there at the falls who said that the river was as high as it had been in probably 10 years.  And you could tell it, from comparison with most photos of the falls.  It was absolutely thundering!  So much so that mist was billowing from the base of the falls and condensing on the rocks above then dripping down and soaking the boardwalk.  We explored around the falls for a long while, including an old stone foundation from a grist mill that at one time had been built at the top of the falls.  

Brandywine Falls

Then we drove to the south of the park and explored a really large beaver marsh and an old covered bridge that had been rebuilt in the 1980's. By this time it was about 4:30 in the afternoon.  We were considering going to investigate a couple other waterfalls before going back to our Vrbo place, but it started to rain with no sign of letting up.  So we packed back in the car, went to the grocery store to pick up some food to eat, and then went back to our cozy abode for the night.  We planned to wake up at 8am to go back to the park and hike the "Ledges" trail before heading home.

Well, the temperature dropped during the night to near freezing, and at 8am it was drizzling with more rain to come off and on throughout the morning.  So we slept in again and had a leisurely morning packing the car and getting out of town.  We stopped at Costco outside Toledo to fill up with fuel and eat lunch––and, I have to say, the Costco turkey-and-provolone sandwich is mighty tasty (even if it is a whole $7!!!).  We all thought we definitely need to go back sometime during the autumn season and finish the hikes that we missed.  It would be a perfect trip to fill the Wheaton Public School four-day weekend "fall break."  So I'm sure we'll probably make that happen at some point!  

Finally, we were all amazed at our license plate count this trip.  We didn't start counting until the 6-hour drive back home.  In that time, we counted 33 different US states!  We all under guessed (18, 21, and 25 were our guesses).