OUR TIME IN THE BUCKEYE STATE

Jett’s Wild Flight: Cedar Point Amusement Park

By: Jett Lillie, 7/22/22

OH! Hi from O-HI-O. When I heard we were going to Cedar Point I said, “We’re going to our church’s theme park?!” Because our church’s name is cedarpoint, too! Okay, first we got there and we had a confusion. We bought the “all-day-dining” pass, but it was trash because it was only for a limited menu and didn’t include drinks! Too many limitations and so many rules, like Monopoly. It was a waste of money. But let’s get on to the rides!

My favorite ride was a rollercoaster called Raptor. It goes upside down like 7 times! My least favorite rollercoaster was Blue Steel as it was a wooden one. And wood is rough, so I think you get a hint of why the ride is not my favorite. My second favorite was Valravyn. It was a rollercoaster that did one or two loopty-loops and had a major cliff hanger like 350 feet in the air. I overcame my fear of going upside down. I really like rollercoasters now!

Jules’ Journal: Cuyahoga Valley National Park

By: Julianne Lillie, 7/24/22

It was Sunday, so we listened to Pastor Rick’s message in the car on our 1 hour drive to Cuyahoga Valley National Park.

We arrived and headed straight to Boston Mills Visitor’s Center. Kids started their JR Ranger booklets, we listened to a 15 minute Park Ranger talk, then headed out to hike the Stanford trail to see Brandywine Falls. We ended up walking 1 mile from the Visitor’s center just to the trailhead. Then another 1.5 miles to the Falls. The waterfall was beautiful and HUGE! Here's some photos from our hike:

Cuyahoga River

Brandywine Falls:

At this point, we quickly realized we were in a time crunch to make our 1pm train ride on the Cuyahoga National Scenic train. It was an extremely hot day, heat index of 98 degrees with 70% humidity and with no breeze in the forest, the hiking was a bit strenuous. Since we were running out time and the kids were running out of steam, Jason took off back down the 2.5 miles we just did and RAN IT ALL THE WAY! Red-faced & sweaty, he pulled the truck around from the Visitor’s center to the trailhead to save us some time hiking that last mile. The 3 of us ended up running the last part of the trail to meet him… we jumped in the truck and drove 25 minutes to Rockside Station. We ended up making the train with ONE MINUTE TO SPARE!

But because we were so late, we couldn’t find 4 seats together. So we split up, two and two.

The two couples we ended up crowding were very sweet and we all enjoyed talking together! We met Tom & Mary from Fort Worth (as of 2 weeks ago) but who had lived in this area of Ohio their whole lives. As a boy, Tom had traveled all over the US in an RV with his family, so he had lots of stories and travel ideas he shared with us. The other nice couple we chatted with were from Akron, Ohio and were “oohing” and “awing” as Jaycie was sketching the Brandywine Falls from our hike earlier. (photo below in Jaycie's Bunny Hoppin' News post)

Since we skipped lunch due to our overambitious hike, we were left to our snack bag & the snack cart on the train. Jett got a hot dog and popcorn, Jaycie got Veggie Straws and fruit snacks, and Jason and I got Lunchables. After we “re-fueled”, we played our National Park game on the train with our new friends! It was a lot of fun!

The passenger train ride was 3.5 hoursround trip and followed the Cuyahoga River from Cleveland to Akron which consisted of the majority of the National Park. We saw some pretty views of meadows, ponds, bogs, and even saw a bald eagle’s nest. The bald eagle’s nest was 80 feet high in the air and was 13 feet tall by 9 feet wide. That is massive… almost as large as our RV bay opening at home! The bald eagle couple didn’t produce eaglets this year, but the park is hopeful they will start producing in the next year or two as they mature. Here's a photo of the Eagle's nest, can you spot it?

Towards the end of our train ride, after our second to last stop, we had to make an emergency medical stop for paramedics to board & assist with a passenger (not in our car). Unfortunately, this 15 minute delay caused yet another time crunch in our ability to make it back to the Visitor’s Center (25 minutes away) by 5pm to turn in our Jr Ranger booklets. Jason “drove like he stole it” and we got there at 5:02pm and literally RAN in the door right before Park Ranger Rebecca locked the door! Whew! The kids were able to turn in their booklets, take their oath, and earn their 18th Jr. Ranger badge!

Man, what a lot we crammed into one day. It may have been fast & furious, but we had fun and made some memories and new friends along the way!

Jaycie’s Bunny Hoppin’ News: Cuyahoga Valley National Park

By: Jaycie Lillie, 7/24/22

Hi from O-HI-O! =) Hope ya’ll are all good! The hike we went on was NOT GOOD. It was 5 miles! [more like 4 or 3.5, but felt like 5 miles!] The HEAT! The HUMIDITY! It was like 80%. I could barely breathe! The hike was muddy and I was wearing my good, white shoes! Not fun. So we made it to this waterfall. It was called Brandywine Falls. I asked daddy why and he said, “They must have found a bottle of Brandy and wine.” I don’t know about that. Anyway we were late for our train. Daddy ran all the way back and the Park Ranger stood as he passed and said, “More power to you!” He got the truck and drove to meet us a bit closer than where we originally parked. He looked like a red neck but a face to match. I thought I couldn’t breathe. We sped all the way to the train station. [Surprisingly, we didn’t get pulled over!] The minute we pulled up we jumped out all like heroes to save the day! Daddy went to park like a cool getaway driver [but we were getting there, not leaving.] We ran in! The people working said, “Okay good, go there.” Then the conductor said, “Oh, this car is getting full. If you can’t find seats go down and then down, and so on.” So we kept going down, and down, and so on and didn’t find seats together. We were two and two. We met some fun people. We played games and I drew on the train. It was a fun train! We skipped lunch, so we headed to the café car. They had popcorn, Veggie straws, fruit snacks, cookies, drinks, candy, and hot dogs. Jett got a hot dog and I got veggie straws. Yum! [but not the hot dog.]

After a lot of stops, ours came. But right before, an emergency stop happened with an ambulance. [I’m not sure what happened.] This caused a 15 minute delay. We rushed to the visitor center with Daddy as our driver. We made it at 5:02! [They close at 5:00!] They were still open, though. We got our badges and they were cool wooden ones. YAY!

Here's a photo of my sketch of Brandywine Falls: