We started walking the Ohio and Erie Canal Towpath on a beautiful warm and sunny day. I think the temperature was in the 60s. All I know is we were comfortable in sweatshirts. It was a perfect day for walking. We saw all kinds of great things that day. The area we were walking included Summit Lake. It seems Summit Lake used to be an amusement park area that had a large carousel and floating dance floor. Unfortunately, Summit Lake now is better known now for the crime and trash that now surrounds it. I thoroughly enjoyed it for the waterfowl. I wasn't able to get close enough to any of the birds except for the Canada Geese for a picture but I will find some from the internet.
Here is Annie and one of the Canada Geese coming to see if she had anything to eat.
We also saw American Coots
This is not my picture. I tried to sneak up on about 30 of these swimming on the water but they saw Annie running up to me and took off. I left her playing with cattails and tried to sneak up to them again but by then they were wise to me. I followed them quite a way but could never get close enough for them to look like more than dots on the camera. A nice zoom lens may help though in the future. Hint hint to any family reading this! Notice these guys' feet. I always thought they were ducks but they aren't. They are really of the rail family.
We saw Canvasback ducks
Also another picture that I didn't take. But... this is a canvasback duck. These are the largest of the diving ducks. The one I saw seemed to have a lighter back but it may have just been the lighting. From what I have been able to read about this duck I was pretty lucky to have seen this duck. Call it beginners luck I guess. Not so much that they are rare but that they usually like deeper lakes then where I was and that you usually need binoculars to see them. I did have my binoculars and I saw him much clearer with them but he was pretty clear without them.
We saw a Northern Shoveler
I had never seen a duck like this before and had to look it up. I even had to go back because I couldn't remember exacatly what he looked like well enough to identify him in the book at home. Poor kids had to make their own dinner that night because this duck needed identified. At least I have my priorities straight. Right? What if he flew off and wasn't there the next day and I never knew what he was? It wasn't like my kids were gonna starve if they had to make their own dinners for one night. They have to sacrifice for science too. Anyway... This duck's bill is used to strain small invertebrates from the pond.
And of course the ever faithful mallards were everywhere. I forgot to take a picture of them though. I figure you know what they look like though. We did see some other interesting things. We saw three muskrats.
Once again not my picture. The picture I took was too far away and you couldn't really see what it was. We were really excited when we saw the muskrats. Each time. Lol. These guys though common were really neat. They would come off the edge of the bank and swim in the water to another spot on the bank. Once we got home and did a little research on these guys we found that they can stay under water for 12-16 minutes. That was amazing to me. They can also shut their ears. We saw great blue herons nesting. Of course once again I don't have decent pictures because they were too far away.
Sorry this is a giant pic. Once again not mine. Got it from Metroparks facebook. For some reason I can't get this picture to go smaller. Oh well. It's a nice pic isn't it? I bet this person has a nice zoom lens lol. Just kidding family.
We also saw a garter snake
That was the end of our walk. We didn't get to walk as far as I had hoped. The kids got tired and I guess didn't eat as much as they should have and we had to cut our walk short even though the day was beautiful.
Unfortunately, the next day was 40 degrees and raining. Of course.
Annie and I decided to brave the elements and continue our walk. It turned into quite an adventure. This part of the trail went through downtown which turned out to not be our favorite. We found parts we liked but overall this was not our favorite part. We chased another muskrat trying to get a picture but got cut off where the city took the trail away from the water. Things like that kept happening along the whole trail. We would see something interesting and then the trail would leave the water's edge. Very frustrating on the whole.
This part of the towpath is much more industrialized. Those are the towers of B.F. Goodrich off in the distance.
As we walked past the Goodrich plant we waved at a worker. He was cooling himself by a second story window. He was kind enough to wave back to us for this picture. We continued along in the rain.
We saw this, what I think to be a juvenile red tailed hawk, right in the middle of the city. We stood right under the tree and took this picture. He didn't even budge. Acted like we weren't even there. Honesly though, for all I know it's not even a hawk. My identification skills aren't great. I could have been more sure if he was up flying. Then I can tell the difference between a red shouldered and a red tailed but when I'm that close I was at a loss. I will improve I promise.
We loved this guy. He was sitting right outside the theater. Just hanging. Can you imagine the actors and actresses walking out and this goose hissing at them. He didn't even move as we walked past him. He kind of turned his head and looked at us but had no intentions of loosing his prime real estate. We saw a female over toward the right a ways sitting on a nest. Maybe he was watching over his mate. Who knows.
This section was as we left downtown and started into the wilder areas of the canal. Unfortunately, this part is near the jails and there were some interesting people. When people come and go from the jails I later found out they use this path to head into downtown. We might not have picked the best time to walk the trail. I probably should have gone on a weekend when there were more families but we did ok. My husband works for the jail system and we were supposed to turn off at the next road but I didn't realize that it was the last turn off before the jail. My mistake, and was it ever a mistake. I wanted to see Mustill store eventhough it isn't open yet and thought there was another turn off before Memorial Parkway. Mustill Store is the museum of a canal era store. The thing about a turn off I neglected to realize is there is no way to cross the canal to get to the jail except that spot. That is why there were so many creepy guys right there and then all of a sudden they were gone. And of course that's when it decided to start raining harder. And that's when Annie's feet started to hurt. And she got cold. And hungry. And I had no idea how much farther the next cross street was. And I needed to be at a meeting in an hour and a half. Soooo things got interesting. I wrapped my raincoat around her which covered her to the top of her boots and we kept walking. We found some tissues in our Subway bag to keep our faces wiped off with and kept walking. Above all we kept walking. We walked through a lock and of course I had to get a picture lol.
This lock still has everything in the walls but now the towpath goes right through it. A little farther up from this we were able to hear cars. yay!!! Luckily we were only a half mile from the jail and my husband was able to come pick us up. We huddled under the edge of the bathroom roof at the Cascade Valley towpath trail. He took us back to his car and we took his car home. Safe and sound from another adventure. I even made it to my metting on time. I had just slipped into dry jeans when my dad walked in to pick me up. Annie went to take a warm bath. I think she got the better end to that stick. My older daughter said she stayed in there for an hour. Another good day at the park.
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