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The next morning, lake-effect snow was coming for a nearby portion of I-90 that I would need to drive to get back to Cleveland and on to Akron. As I wasn't about to find out what kind of tires I had on the rental, I instead decided to head southeast from Hamburg on secondary back roads, forced to grab a couple of new county courthouses (woe is me!) and check out some areas I've never explored (oh the humanity!) Ever since my first drive across New York State, I've wanted to spend more time checking out The Empire State's attractive towns and villages of old buildings nestled alongside rivers. Therefore this lake-effect snow wasn't the worst turn of events. |
Quickly into the northern reaches of the Allegheny Mountains, nearby ski hills tried to convince me to learn to love winter. Fat chance, Holiday Valley Ski Hill. |
Unfortunately for me, only one New York State county courthouse made sense this morning. Adding Warsaw NY or Belmont NY would have added an hour and a half to my drive (map), and that plus the winter conditions, gave me reservation when it came to these hills and country roads. So the only new NYS county courthouse today was the Cattaraugus County Courthouse in Little Valley. Built in 1965, my favourite source for county courthouse information - CourthouseLover on Flickr - says "From what I have seen, this one is one of the least appealing courthouses in Upstate New York." Woot. What a good one to get for my only new NYS county courthouse of the day, haha. |
To add insult to injury, the 1868 Cattaraugus County Courthouse is long gone, but the courthouses from 1817 and 1829 still stand in nearby Ellicottville - meaning I wasn't even able to colour Cattaraugus County in on my map of New York State county courthouses. At least I enjoyed a brief walk around the handsome, isolated village of Little Valley. |
Crossing into Pennsylvania and even though I'm not actively working on getting Keystone State county courthouses, I needed somewhere to point the car so I pointed it at the county seat of Warren County. As luck would have it, there was a stunning, sprawling Kirkbride (a building style for mental asylums) across from North Warren's Taco Bell. I cruised the campus while scarfing down my chicken quesadilla and Sierra Mist. |
I know some of you are wondering, and no, I didn't push my luck. |
Closer to downtown stood the Warren County Courthouse. Quite the introduction to Pennsylvania County Courthouses! |
Down in Tionesta Pennsylvania, the Forest County Courthouse wasn't as flashy but it was still over 150 years old (built 1867-68). From Tionesta, I was starting to worry about getting to Akron at a reasonable hour, especially as I'd now sunk myself deep into these Northwest Pennsylvania forests and backroads. |
I had to make it to Akron as I'd grown sick of this trip's high motel costs and booked a bare bones, $68 CAD all-in room out to the northwest of Akron by the interstate. Getting my key from the front desk and worried as I was pushing my lower limits of motel quality, I opened the door and paused. It took me a second to realize the front desk clerk must've accidentally gave me a room under renovation. My real room was acceptable and I was happy to save the extra $30 I would have spent elsewhere. After grabbing some Bob Evans, I gave Isy a call and she once again insisted that I was wrong with regards to what happens if I test positive for Covid. She was sure that I'd have to stay in the States, and this is something Shelloo, Donnie & my parents also thought - but I had looked up the website prior to this trip. I read it carefully! Multiple times! Resisting checking the website again while in Erie or Buffalo, I finally checked it to discover that...I was wrong? The Canadian government website, in a sentence clear as day, stated that any Canadians coming from America would have to quarantine in America for 14 days following a positive Covid test. I was so sure that I would just have to quarantine in Canada. I swore I was right. I had checked the website wording over and over and over again. This was something I had to pay careful attention to. Well this certainly added a wrinkle as even if I headed up to Flint or Saginaw for a grimy motel, what was I looking at for 2 weeks at a motel? $1000? $1400? Fuck. I needed to go get a Covid test asap. At least if I got a positive test tomorrow, three more days of planned vacation would eat into that "14 days since your positive test" timeline. |
The next morning the Covid test would have to wait as I was up early to go for a sunrise walk at nearby Cuyahoga Falls National Park. I chose The Ledges Trail and was pleased with my morning stroll amongst tall trees and alongside and thru rock formations. |
Annoyingly, I only later thought about how I could probably have got the highpoint of Cuyahoga National Park as none of the trails are all that hard (my trail only had 80m elevation gain). Turns out the highpoint isn't even as hard as The Ledges, as it's just some random point beside a county road. I could have easily nabbed it if I had thought of it. |
Making my way up towards Cleveland, I happened upon Brandywine Falls and wanting a bit more hiking than The Ledges had provided (1.8mi/2.9km), I decided to stop in. |
Woah, ruins! Now my abandoned building friends won't be annoyed with me staying in the car at Warren State Hospital, haha. |
George Wallace built a sawmill on the other side of these falls in 1814. Soon after, a whiskey distillery, grist mill, woolen mill and a dozen houses were constructed in what was known as the village of Brandywine. George then passed on his property to his sons, who formed the Wallace Brothers Company that thrived here for the next 30 years. The Ohio & Erie Canal, and then the railroads, brought supplies to the cities of Akron and Cleveland but left villages like Brandywine behind. In 1920, Willis Hale gave Brandywine some new life by building his Champion Electric Company near the old grist mill, but the electric appliance producing plant was struck by lightning and burned down in 1937. |
The above ruins are from the Champion Electric Company. The only other markers of Brandywine left are a few foundations in the woods and the farmhouse of George Wallace's son James (now the Inn at Brandywine, a B&B). Anyway, I needed to get up to Cleveland, where I was surprised to find that they had free Covid tests at the Cleveland Clinic! I had budgeted for a Covid test as I needed one to get back to Canada regardless, but free would also certainly work. |
One lane of a large, wide road was blocked off with about five pylons and signs directing you underground for Covid testing. Descending into a subterranean parking garage, it felt odd that this was the location for a medical procedure. Before I knew it though, a small Asian man in a full hazmat suit, facemask and shield approached my car and went right for sticking the long q-tip up my nose. "Woah, woah, woah!" I put my hands out as my eyes watered. "It needs to go in deeper. This isn't going to work unless you allow me to go deeper!" I tried my best until the man gave up with a furrowed brow and unimpressed look. Pulling back out on to the street, I was discombobulated following the quick invasive procedure and return to daylight. I figured I'd earned some delicious food at this point, but heading east to Cleveland Heights, I made the mistake of going to a burrito place. Now I hate make your own burrito places because I always put nonsensical things or not enough things, where instead I'd prefer a burrito place just to have a choice of burritos with chef-dictated ingredients. I've even got into a tiff with Isy about this before, as she sent me into the Avalon Mall to get a burrito "with standard burrito things" and she was appalled when she bit into the burrito and discovered I picked quinoa instead of rice? But I don't know, I don't get burritos! Is quinoa that crazy? Apparently it is! Anyway, I did that again here in Cleveland Heights. I got the worst burrito with next to nothing in it because I have no idea what I'm doing. At least it was cool seeing where Travis Kelce grew up. |
Even though I had left the snow behind, I already had plans to hit up Cleveland's Ray's Indoor Bike Park. There were only two things I knew about Ray's going into this - one, that it's family friendly in that I know of a family of mountain bikers who come here, and two, that it was built by mountain bikers. Both of these made me picture a place with logs and small rollers and maybe a rhythm section, but I figured I could just ride the landing of a box jump or 180 over a log if push came to shove. Oh yeah, I also knew a third thing, as legendary BMX pro Taj Mihelich jumped a insane gap through the rafters here, so I also knew there was giant transition wall, haha. |
Not having done my research, I was happy it was early in the day because I was just stopping in the middle of the course like WTF is this place? How long have the mountain bikers been working on this? This was a mountain bike course built into an old factory instead of a hillside? |
After passing the store and cafe near the entrance, I entered the biggest room where there was the aforementioned rhythm section, plus a whole section with logs and elevated wood for mountain bikers to hop on and jammed their brakes riding skinny things. It was fun to randomly cruise through and hop things and ride some of the skinny stuff, but it was also clearly made for mountain bikes or dirt jumping BMXers. From there, there were offshoots into hallways and other rooms. I followed a sign through a hallway and ended up in a smaller room with wallrides and an elevated, downhill pump track; from there, there were two more hallways leading off into other rooms, that led into other rooms, and it just kept going and going. It was every bike rider's old factory dream, but actually brought to life. And when you add in my love of exploring old factories, I would have been happy enough riding my bike through here without any ramps! Let alone being presented with opportunities to ride cool ish at every turn. |
This factory was built in 1916 for the Industrial Rayon Company. Rayon was used for tire cord and industrial belting, and during WWII, rayon from this plant was also used in parachutes. In the 1960s, other nylons and polymers gradually replaced rayon, while domestic rayon businesses also suffered as cheaper overseas rayon flooded the market (if LBJ was smart, he would have obviously put tariffs on the incoming rayon). The final nail in the coffin was General Motors switching their tires to nylon tire cord in 1968. The Industrial Rayon Company plant closed in 1969. Ray's indoor bike park opened on Thanksgiving weekend in 2004. |
The two most BMX-friendly rooms were the pool where Taj did that transfer and this small backroom with glass blocks. Both were fun enough, but I enjoyed riding the wacky, obscure stuff a lot more. |
I even rode the foam pit for a bit, but it's the damndest thing it was much easier to climb out of a foam pit the last time I rode one (2005) than today (2022). My backflip attempts were about the same though (rotate about 40% of the way and land upside down in the foam). Anyway, even if you're just a casual bike rider who occasionally hits the local trail, I'd recommend checking out Ray's. Heck, I'd recommend it just if you like old factories, as it's unbelievable the amount of wood, time and design put into this place. I've rode better skateparks, but I don't think I've ever rode a more memorable skatepark. |
Following Ray's, I had a three-hour drive across Ohio and it was already getting late in the day. It's never too late to look at the Ohio county seats map though and make a brief stop. This is the Crawford County Courthouse in Bucyrus, built 1854-1856. |
Aw hell yeah. |
Stopping in Wapakoneta to use gas station WiFi and look for somewhere to stay, I couldn't help but take a couple of photos of the gorgeous Auglaize County Courthouse. |
There was only one Wapakoneta motel option and it was expensive. I was going to Indiana tomorrow anyway, so I kept heading west, past St Mary's and their relatively expensive chain motels, over to Celina where I knew there was a cheaper motel - except that it was one of those deals where there isn't anyone working and you have to call a number and unfortunately, I hadn't paid for any American cell phone minutes. I stood outside wondering if I could find a payphone, but my friend Arntz had just posted about how surprised he was to see payphones still on Quebec's Gaspé Peninsula, so I decided I was too tired to comb Celina for a payphone that probably didn't exist. |
So it was back to St Mary's and the Quality Inn, where I gave them all of the money I saved at that dumpy motel in Akron last night. Heading out for dinner, options were limited in small town Ohio on a weekday in January. I cruised the main strip and only saw a DQ, another ice cream shop, Arby's, Subway, and then the Taco Bell right next door to my Quality Inn. Longing for a draft beer and to watch some sports, I went with Beer Barrel Bar & Grill, but it was bumping, filled with a ton of gruff young men and not a mask in sight. I figured it wouldn't be fun to sit there as the outsider with a mask and long flowing hair, so I just put in my pizza order, hit their attached drive-thru liquor mart, then waited for 45 minutes back at the Quality Inn. It's back at my room that the weather channel showed that I made the correct turn back in Hamburg NY. The weather was much better here, about 30 minutes from Lima, Ohio. Anyway, my pizza was fine and the Quality Inn was a Quality Inn. It was time to hit the hay in order to maybe get some early morning lighthouses tomorrow. |
