Checking another national park (Kia-HOW-ga) off our list as this park is on our way home. There are no park-run campsites and the park is spread out between Cleveland and Akron and contains county-run and private areas. It’s high on the most-visited list, but I suspect that most visitors are local. This doesn’t appear to be a contained, destination park like Arches or Yellowstone; though there is an amazing bike route (Tow Path where the mules walked to tow things down the canal), and plenty of things we didn’t see to make future stops fun. Without a national campground here, we are using our Harvest Host membership to stay at a business in Cleveland.

The highest waterfall in the park is a big attraction, so we headed to the parking lot/picnic area of Brandywine Falls. We hiked the Brandywine Gorge Loop and added the Stanford Trail to Stanford House to gain some steps for the day. There was a Brandywine Village back in the 1800s that used the water power of the falls to run a sawmill and a gristmill. Some foundations of the gristmill are still there.

When we stay at a Harvest Host site, we are expected to support the business through purchases. We usually stay at wineries, breweries, museums, etc. When I told Tony we would stay at Tim Lally Chevrolet, he said, “So we’re buying a car???” Not this time—we will donate to their breast cancer charity. Which fits perfectly with the month of October anyway, though the Corvettes on display inside looked pretty sweet! The lot had many, many suburbans equipped with searchlights, so we think they must do the ordering for local law enforcement. Usain had a nice level parking spot on their back lot:)