Behind Downtown Akron. A Walk from Lock 3 Park to Lock #1 site.

Under the State Street Bridge.

Downtown Akron, Ohio is small enough that you can usually find parking in the evenings or weekends, but large enough that you get a good selection of restaurants, attractions, and events.  On Thursday, the 17th, Shelby and I decided to head downtown.  Turns out there was a sold-out Rubber Ducks game (they are really packing the stands this year), something big going on at the Civic Theater, and a "Downtown at Dusk" event at the art museum.  For a Thursday night, downtown was packed elbow to elbow.

Lock 3 park didn't have anything going on, so we parked in the State Street garage that sits between the park and Canal Park.  We got there early enough to miss the baseball crowd flooding into the parking.  

Lock 3 was barren.  The stage sat empty, waiting for the Friday Night Rock the Lock concert.  We stepped onto the towpath, and headed south.

Lock 3 itself is directly behind the fence.

I mentioned before that Shelby is fascinated by canal locks.  Walking a few hundred feet south of the park, and under the State Street bridge takes you to Lock #2.  I think that this is Shelby's favorite thus far, because it still has "doors" on it.  They're not functional, and actually don't go the whole way to the bottom of the lock, but they give you a sense of what it would have looked like when it was full.

The downstream gate.  There is an artistic, life sized canal boat in the background with an interpretative sign.

  We traipsed around lock 2 for a bit, which is also directly behind Canal Park.  There were a few people already being seated, and the grounds crew was preparing the infield.  This might be a sneaky place to watch the game or even catch a home run without even needing to purchase a ticket.  I don't know if they clear the area during games or not.

On down past canal park, you come to the former site of Lock #1.  The canal disappears under exchange street here, and on the west bank, is the Richard Howe House.  This building was built in 1836 by Richard Howe, the resident engineer of the Ohio and Erie canal.  But it wasn't built here.  It was originally constructed further to the east on Exchange street.  It was neglected, but in 2008, the Canalway Coalition cut the whole thing in half, put it on flatbeds, restored it, and moved it to the present site.  You can tour it now (I haven't got the chance yet).  It's open Monday through Friday, 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM.

This is the view from the stairs heading across the canal to the Howe house, just below Exchange street.  From right to left: Howe House, Akron YMCA building, the canal, and Canal Park.

We continued down the towpath a bit past here, going under Exchange street in what is an old viaduct tunnel faced with sandstone.  A look at a Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from 1886 shows that a creek used to run through here.

The intersection of Exchange and S. Main streets in Akron as it looked in 1886.

Other than some of the steam pipes from the Akron Steam plant, and a nice view of the former BF Goodrich stacks, there aren't many more "features" to the canal until you walk the whole way to Summit Lake, approximately 1 mile from Exchange street.  We decided to turn around at one of the former Goodrich office buildings and head back to Lock 3.

In essence, we we able to take a nice leisurely stroll, and see a lot of history, some nature (there are quite a few geese and mallards in the canal though here, and interesting plants growing on the banks) "behind" a busy downtown Akron.  If you would just like a 30 minute out-and-back, relaxing walk, you can't go wrong with this one.

Taken a few days prior to our walk, during the Italian American festival.  

Exploring the Cascade Locks

On Sunday, Shelby and I decided to wake up a little early, and go for a walk.  I hopped on the Ohio and Erie Canalway website, and downloaded some "quests", which are kind of like Geocaching, but with more back story behind the clues.  You can pick up the pamphlets at different visitors centers in the area.

We decided to head to the Cascade Locks area, as it's one of Shelby's favorite spots.  She loves to explore the old canal locks, Cascade Mills, the Mustill Store, and the old railroad bridges.  There is a lot of history in a 1/4 mile section of the towpath.

So, we printed out our instructions, and hopped in the car.  Out of the three quests we had in that area, we decided to start with Questing the Cascade Locks.  This started us at the Mustill store parking lot, and the information Kiosk located at that point.

After having Shelby read the various rhyming clues, we learned that the spillway for lock 15, directly across from the store, runs right underneath the porch of the building.  It can still be seen as a small trench from the upstream end of the lock, down to the Little Cuyahoga river.

Now, this was beginning to be fun for me too.  What started as a simple excuse to get outside, and have Shelby learn some things, turned into an educational experience for me as well.  I had never really noticed the trench, and when we hit this point, it got me to look around and observe the layout of the area even more.  Even though inside the Mustill store there are plenty of historical exhibits and pictures, I like to simply daydream and imagine what the area looked like 150 years ago, when all of it was still a functioning canal.

Lock 15 is on the left.  You can see the remains of the spillway on the right side of the path, and the ramp to the Mustill Store's porch at bottom right.  

We found our way across North Street, over to lock 14.  Shelby is fascinated by canal locks.  She knows the simple stuff, like how old they are, that canal boats used them to make their way up or downhill, and that they used to be full of water, but, more surprisingly for a 7 year old, she understands exactly HOW they worked, and the actual process used to either lift or lower a boat.  I credit the exhibits in the store and various visitor centers with teaching her this.  Most of the time, she simply glances over the exhibits, and heads straight for where the stuffed animals are stored, but when it comes to the interactive lock exhibit, she can easily spend 15 minutes just playing with it, not realizing she's learning.

As we were going through the various clues, the sky started threatening.  Unfortunately, we were operating with paper, which doesn't do so well in the rain.  We stepped up our pace a little, and walked up to lock 12, which is nicely covered by a new foot bridge with a roof, since it passes directly under the high railroad bridge spanning the valley.  We spent 10 minutes or so looking at the various details of lock 12 and both the new an old piers for the current and former railroad bridges while we waited out the rain that finally began to fall.

Our last clue pointed us to the secret box, which contains a log book and a stamp.  As we were standing under the roof, we could see the box, about 30 feet away.  Not knowing how long the rain would last, I decided to just use the umbrella and head over to it.

Shelby deciphered the way to open the box, and we went ahead and signed the log book, and stamped her paper.  At this point, we were getting hungry, and the rain was still falling, so we headed back to the car, and determined that the best course of action would be to grab some breakfast and head home.

After a good meal at Akron Family Restaurant, (highly recommended for it's good food, service, and prices) we made our way home.  We still have two more quests to do in the Cascade locks area, and over 40 more scattered around the Canalway, which runs from Cleveland, through the Cuyahoga Valley, Akron, and on south to Canton and Massillon.

Finding the Nerve

So, I've finally decided that it was time to begin chronicling my life, the people that surround me, and especially the things I've done or plan to do.  Someday, this might be something that my daughter might read and reminisce.  That won't happen anytime soon, I believe, since my daughter is only 7.  Facebook doesn't cut it for me.  It's too "in the moment", and I find that I never have anything important to say at a given point in time.  I would rather sit and reflect on the important things, and put them all down at once, rather than 15 posts throughout a day with each little event being lost in the shuffle.  

To start out, I've always felt that I am fairly decent at expressing things in written words.  I guess that I suffer from something far more problematic than writer's block, and that would be from a lack of motivation in the first place.  I enjoy numerous different activities and hobbies, but I generally float from one subject to the next, obsessing over it for a week or two, learning all about it, and spending money on "gear" with nothing ever really "sticking".

The only thing that has remained constant throughout the years has been my love of the outdoors.  I've read "survival" type books since I was 6 or 7 years old, always fantasizing about disappearing into the wilderness, and living off of the land, ala Christopher McCandless (of Into the Wild notoriety).  

Had I not found my wife, Megan, I may very well be doing (or at least attempting to do) just that.  However, since I have a family to provide for and bills to pay, I'll settle for the occasional backpacking trip for a few days somewhere east of the Mississippi, or even a Saturday morning walk of 1/4 mile to an old mill site along the Ohio and Erie canal in Akron, OH. Then again, I may get it in my head that I want to work on the car, go have a beer, or write a blog.

Since it's the subject I feel the most experienced in, and also the one that I know will be a lifelong love of mine, I'll probably have a lot of backpacking, camping, hiking, and related things.  Sometimes I'll probably just ramble on about completely different subjects that I find interesting.  With enough effort, maybe I'll find that there are certain subjects that I write more about than others.

Since the spirit of this blog will be about "Finding the Nerve" to learn about and try new things while juggling a career in IT, a family, and my own personal life, expect a lot of randomness.

Now, I just have to "find the nerve" to write.