Its a beautiful day in the neighborhood! Before starting we TRIPLE-CHECKED that we had all car keys to avoid a repeat of our last mishap. Started in Chapin Forest by big chairs and walked through park. There was a nice scenic overlook about halfway through park where you could see the lake and downtown Cleveland off in the distance. Several graduation parties going on in covered park pavilions. Lucky to have such a nice day to celebrate. Stopped for a snack break by a scum pond vibrant with croaking frogs, then passed an old quarry in the creek bed that was used to build half of Kirkland I guess. Shortly after, BT came onto the road directly across from a century home antique store having a super sale- of course some of us had to go in and shop. Turns out the house was owned by the same family who owned the quarry in the park and the woman proprietor was part of the family line! She was very friendly and told us the whole story, felt sorry we didn’t buy anything. The BT stayed on the road for a while, tried to walk on the shady side, and then scooted into Penitentiary Glen off Eagle Rd- VERY easy to miss since entrance was only an unmarked path cut through a thicket of reeds- actually the turn was marked on a telephone pole maybe 100 ft back, so was confusing to find the turn off. The trail in the park was also not well marked at times with many turnoffs. We did finally find our way into and out of the glen to arrive at the Nature Center parking lot. THAT was a long hike!
We decided a new feature of our blog would be to give a shout out to any nearby place to eat where we stopped after hiking that was worth recommending- so our first star goes to Angelo’s pizza and ice cream on Chardon Rd (?). Just what we needed after a long afternoon hike- with outdoor shaded picnic tables in the grass.
