Exploring Ohio

Or, to be more accurate, exploring the small corner of Ohio we live in. Ohio is a big state. We have had family visiting lately so we have been out and about going to new places. One of the main things various family members wanted to see was Lake Erie.

Lake Erie is the fourth largest of the Great Lakes and the eleventh largest globally. At its deepest, it is 210 feet deep which makes it the shallowest of the Great Lakes. We visited two different beaches on the lake. The one in the photo above is Huntington Beach. It is part of the Cleveland Metroparks and the first one we went to. I love water and beaches though I am not someone who really enjoys lying on a beach for extended periods of time. One of the things I regretted when we moved to the Midwest was leaving the ocean behind so I was very interested to see whether the lake beaches might fill that gap in my life. My first reaction was that the lake was very disorienting. It was big, with no end in sight, there were small waves so it sounded a bit like the ocean, but it smelled completely wrong. There was no salt smell, no marshy odor, even the sand didn’t smell right. My husband, who grew up in the Midwest, looked slightly baffled and said that yes, it smelled like a lake. But huge bodies of water like that should not smell like a lake. It did, however, provide a similar peaceful feeling of watching boats and gazing off into the distance. There were even seagulls and we wandered around searching for beach glass.

When my sister and niece were in town we drove on down the shore of the lake until we came to Lakeview Beach. We all really liked this beach. We ended up spending more time than we planned there which wasn’t necessarily a great idea. We all got a bit sunburnt.

There was a gorgeous rose garden in front of the beach. All the roses were in full bloom and absolutely beautiful.

We liked this beach so much that we went back later in the week to see the sunset. It was surprisingly not very crowded and we had such a nice time wandering around and taking a ridiculous number of photos. But, really, who could resist? Just look.

This post is already a little photo heavy so I will stop here and save our kayaking adventures, visit to a living history farm, and other exciting tidbits for another day. I know you all can’t wait.

And my final conclusion on Lake Erie? It isn’t the ocean but it will do.