Oh, Ohio!

On Sunday, 8/10, we arrived at Erie Islands Resort & Marina. It’s a great campground; not many trees, but all the sites are pull-thru and very wide. We were probably at least two miles (as the crow flies) from Lake Erie, but at $10 a night – who’s complaining.

We spent our first full day driving around the area, through Port Clinton, by the lake, out to Marblehead and back through Catawba Island. It wasn’t as much driving as it sounds; things are fairly close together around here.

We had lunch in Port Clinton: walleye and fries. Walleye and perch are the big catch from the lake and they seem very proud of it if you go by their restaurant prices. But it was good.

Our first stop for pictures was at Lakepoint Park on the east coast of Marblehead.

This is as close as we got to Cedar Point, an amusement park across the bay near Sandusky.

We had to get our picture taken while here, with Lake Erie behind us.

Karen, this lighthouse photo is just for you. We didn’t go up in it, but be assured it was WAY smaller than the one in St. Augustine. On Tuesday, we caught the 9:30 ferry to Put-In-Bay (say Puddin’ Bay).

What a great place this was to visit. We took a tram tour around the island. Our first stop was the Butterfly House at Perry’s Cave. I’ve been to bigger displays, but these were so beautiful, we didn’t even notice.



This next one was the hardest to catch. The underside of their wings is brown and not very special. But the top side is this beautiful blue. They rarely sat still with the wings open, so Julian kept shooting till he got this one in flight. Once we got our fill of the butterflies, we walked across the street to Heineman’s Winery. They boasted a cave beneath the winery that allows you to stand inside the world’s largest geode. I had to see this. OK, it really could be the world’s largest geode. There were about a dozen of us in there on this tour. However, it was also the world’s smallest cave! That was it! You went down, walked around the staircase and came right back up again. It was definitely overpriced for what it was, but, hey, that’s the risk one takes when sight-seeing, right?

There was a tour of the winery too, but we opted out of that. We’ve seen wineries. But we did taste the grape juice and the Riesling. I’m not normally wowed by grape juice, but this stuff was really good. And so was the Riesling – we bought 4 bottles of it.

Then we hopped back on the trolley and rode it back into the downtown area. We had a great lunch of walleye, cheese stix, grilled chicken and sauerkraut balls. And it was ALL terrific.

The whole day there was terrific. We’ve said we’d both go back again, rent a golf cart and just roam around the island.

The next day, we stopped at the Jolly Roger (THE place for perch and walleye) and picked up perch ‘n chips (‘n onion rings). We drove out to East Harbor State Park on the east side of Catawba Island. We ate the lunch, which was very good. Even Heidi got to go. She doesn’t look it, but she really was having fun out there.

On Friday, we took the ferry to Kelleys Island. There are no organized tours here, so we rented a golf cart and took off after stopping for lattes. This island is only four square miles, so it didn’t take us too long to get around.

Our first stop was the state park on the north end of the island. There was a great beach here and people were definitely enjoying it.

From there we went to The Grooves. This is a tube formed by glaciers about 30,000 years ago. This picture is from above, shooting down the grooved tube. We continued the ride around the island, but these were quite obviously the main attractions unless you were big into hiking and/or birding. So we went back into the very small downtown area and had lunch, then caught the ferry back to Marblehead. Here’s a shot back at Kelleys Island as we left. On Saturday (today) we took a picnic lunch to Catawba State Park, on Catawba Island. We took Heidi again and she’s always thrilled to get to “go”. There is a boat dock there and it was very busy. They even had someone there directing traffic to and from the launch area. And after being on Lake Erie for a week, I felt it was time to touch it. So here I am dipping a hand into the first of the Great Lakes I’ve ever been to. Then it was back to the campground to start getting ready to move to our next location on Sunday. We’ll be in Niagara Falls for a couple days and then on to the Finger Lakes of New York for two and a half weeks. Unfortunately, we won’t have easy (if any) access to the internet, so it may be a while until I can make my next post.

So until then, happy trails!