Go backwards in the blog to see the posts from Days 1-4. I took this trip in July but haven’t had time to finish sorting my photos. This is the last day of the trip. I wasn’t flying home until late in the day so I looked for something to do between Wooster and Cleveland.

I found the Holden Arboretum.

Their website says: “The Holden Arboretum is an outdoor living museum on 3,500 acres that promotes the beauty and importance of trees and other woody plants. The grounds feature over 20 miles of trails that lead you through cultivated gardens and native forests. The Arboretum also features the Murch Canopy Walk, an elevated walkway 65 feet above the forest floor, and the Kalberer Family Emergent Tower, a wooden tower that rises 120 feet above the forest floor for breathtaking views of the surrounding landscape.”

There are beautiful forest paths…

…and lots of wildflowers.

I headed to the Emergent Tower.

From there I could see all the way to Lake Erie.

I also strolled through the forest canopy on this elevated walkway that sways as you walk.

Maple leaves.

Dragonfly.

Cardinal.

I thought this was an interesting part of the arboretum. There were lots of crisscrossing paths through Ohio Plant Communities. Lots of flowers. I usually try to ID my photos later. I have figured out a few of these, but I’ll never finish this trip if I try to do that now. Instead I’m just enjoying the flowers.

The Prairie community.

Butterfly milkweed, Asclepias tuberosa. (I think.)

Purple coneflower, Echinacea purpurea.

Don’t know this one. It was in the “Blueberry Pond”.

I hardly ever spend a lot of time trying to identify yellow Composites because there are so many and I’m never sure that I have the right one. However, I still fully enjoy them.

Another view.

Another dragonfly.

Fire-pink. (maybe)

Don’t know this one, but isn’t it interesting?

Bugs. Sorry I’m not more descriptive. These photos were all from the Ohio Plant Communities trails.

Bottlebrush grass, Elymus hystrix.

Purple coneflower, Echinacea purpurea.

Switching gears…I spent two or three hours at the arboretum and then headed for my last site seeing destination. I don’t think that I had ever seen a Great Lake up close. I really shouldn’t pass that up. So I found my way to Lake Erie.

This is on the road into the place where I found public access.

I mentioned the heat in a couple of the posts about this trip. There was a record-breaking heat wave the whole time that I was in Ohio—heat and humidity.

No wonder there were so many people on the beach on a Sunday afternoon. What a huge lake—complete with a lighthouse. It seemed as though it could have been an ocean. I wanted to walk out to the lighthouse but was told that you really couldn’t get there.

I walked that direction anyway. There was a breakwater between me and the lighthouse. If you look closely you can see people out on that structure to the left of the lighthouse.

I walked along that breakwater through the trees.

I got to the base of the lighthouse, but I wasn’t going to go around the base here and all the way out to where the kids were hanging out.

I read that this lighthouse “was built in 1925 at the mouth of the Grand River and is constructed of riveted iron plate”.

That’s it. I found my way to the airport, turned in the rental car, and came home. Now that I think of it that part of the trip wasn’t that simple. My flight connected in Chicago and there were lots of weather issues. The first flight was delayed and there was not another out to the west coast until the next day. The hope was that the Chicago flight would also be delayed and I’d still make it. I got off the Cleveland flight and ran to the Chicago flight (fortunately only a couple of gates away) and they closed the door behind me and a couple of others. So I made it home, but my suitcase didn’t. I didn’t get back to the house until after 2 a.m. I think. But that’s a whole other story and not very important anymore.

Tomorrow morning I leave for another adventure and I was determined to finish this trip before the next!