Welcome to Ohio!

We are way behind in getting travel posts published this summer because we're having too much fun traveling! So we won't be confused about when each "wandering" happened, we'll start each blog with its actual date.

September 25, 2022

We had permission to stay at our Boondocker Welcome camp site through the morning so we could go attend church in the nearby town of Olean (pronounced Oh-Lee-Ann), New York. Afterwards, our drive in the motor home was 125 miles down the interstate today--most of it in the rain. Even though we have a GPS and google maps running, Denisa loves having a paper map in her lap when she is navigating. She needed three different state paper maps for this drive. We drove one hour through the hills of southern New York with its changing fall foliage.

The next hour was through the northwest ear of Pennsylvania. Note: Pennsylvania didn't even have a welcome sign along the interstate. The only sign of interest for Denisa to photograph in Pennsylvania read, "Right Lane No Trucks." We don't have any idea why that is a thing on the interstate in Pennsylvania. We didn't feel very welcomed in Pennsylvania, so we just kept driving another hour without a stop.

After our two-hour ride, we crossed into our destination state for several days--Ohio. We certainly intend to find it here, whatever "it" is. Welcome to Ohio!

We took the first exit after we crossed the Ohio state line. That's the Conneaut exit--pronounced Connie-aught. We're camping at Evergreen Lake Campground, a half-price Passport America with 50-amp electricity and full hook-ups. We're feeling pretty fancy, and ready to get some laundry and cooking done with those full hook-ups! This is actually our second stop at this campground because it is such a good value in such a nice area. It's a very large campground with more than 250 camp sites. So it's amazing that we were parked in the very same spot six years ago.

From the campground, we're only a few miles from the shores of Lake Erie--the smallest of the five great lakes. A storm is brewing over the lake, and the waves are whipping in like ocean waves. We saw several people walking the shore looking down, so we had to ask what they were looking for--"sea glass." Rough water is notorious for bringing up a new supply of this trash glass that has been smoothed by the water and pebbles in the lake.

Of course, Denisa had to take a picture of the Conneaut Lighthouse that guards the shore of Lake Erie.

People aren't allowed to walk out to this lighthouse. Besides, the waves were crashing over the breakwater today.

Besides sea glass hunters, the only other people at Lake Erie this afternoon were kite boarders. The picture below looks like it was taken in black and white because of the cloudy weather. We could see four kite boarders in a single frame to the right of the lighthouse.

We got to talk to a kite boarder, and found out that this little area beside the protection of the break water was the best place for this sport in all of Lake Erie. They need the wind, and they were getting plenty of that today. But they appreciate the smoother water that the break water provides. We learned that a twelve-foot kite is the best size for weather like today.

They must use a bigger kite when there is less wind, or an eight-foot kite would be used with more wind. It's hard to take a picture of speed, but this guy was really zipping across the water today.

We can watch these kite boarders for a long time, taking way too many pictures.

As we saw more kite boarders arrive, we watched their set-up routine. After getting their kite unfurled, they spend some time on the beach testing the winds before they actually get out on the water.

When they made a turn in the shallow waters, we were quite close to the kite boarders.

Even though it was windy, it was a great day to be at Lake Erie.

While we were watching many different kite boarders, we took several pictures of this one.

We watched as she came on shore, and then motioned for us to come closer. Mark ran up to see what she needed, and she quickly asked him for help in getting this kite on the ground.

She instructed him to run to the far edge of the beach and prepare for his first-ever kite catch.

When it got close to the ground, he grabbed the edge and held on in the wind. While those kites don't look that big while they are far up in the air, they look pretty big beside a six-foot-tall man.

The kite boarder ran back to help with the process of folding and putting away the kite.

That seemed like a good time to finally break away from the trance of watching kite boarders. So we walked back along Lake Erie's shore to do a little bird watching too.

It was rough water on Lake Erie as we left that afternoon.

Even though the weather wasn't ideal, this was actually the best day during our scheduled stay. So we went on a covered bridge hunt too. We made a four bridge loop that started with the Creek Road Covered Bridge.

Four miles later we found the very picturesque State Road Bridge.

A drive of two miles found us at Root Road Covered Bridge.

That brought us into Amish country, where we drove over buggy ruts and beside plain white homesteads. Eight miles later we arrived at the Middle Road Covered Bridge. It was getting dark when we took the picture below.

It started raining just two minutes after we left that fourth covered bridge. When we drove back to the motor home we were glad that we had gotten to see more than we had planned on this "Welcome to Ohio" day.