Ashtabula, Ohio

Bike Repair Station

Well, this is something new to us.  There's nothing wrong with my bike, it's just displayed for maintenance.  See all the wrenches on the cables.  The pump to the left side. This on the hike/bike trail called the Western Reserve Greenway that runs 44 miles from Warren to Ashtabula. 

Of course there are lots of geocaches along the whole way.  This is one of them:

Geocache along trail

Eloise reaching for the cord

 
Can you find it?  It's hanging high on the tree in the first picture, by a cord that loops over a limb and then the cord runs over to another tree.  You have to untie the cord, let the cache drop down to obtain the log.  If you let go of the cord, it could drop off the limb, and then you've got trouble!

There is some pretty dense trees and foliage on the route.  Here Eloise can just barely be seen, before she emerges:

You can barely make out E's shorts (To the right of the tree)

  

So, okay.  She's going in not emerging...

This trail commemorates the underground railroad that ran thru here before and during the civil war.  Ashtabula had several houses that would hide slaves from their pursuers, and then send them along to Canada or other safe places.  You can read about it here: (well, maybe too small for reading, but you get the idea.)

One of Twenty Such Signs along the Trail

Right now we are staying at a Thousand Trails park called Kenisee Lake Resort.  It's in Jefferson, OH., a few miles from Ashtabula, which is on the shores of Lake Erie.  Before we arrived here we stopped at two other campgrounds.  First was Leisure Lakes Campground in Diamond, OH.  Wouldn't care to revisit that one.  Muddy and poor camp sites which weren't user friendly.  Fresh water was muddy or rusty.  It has a mini-golfcourse which is the best thing I have to say about the place.  From there was another Coast 2 Coast park called Millbrook Resort.  That was a nice park, downside was that it didn't have a sewer hook up.  Here's some pictures at Millbrook:

You don't often see an  oil rig in a campground

It had a depth of 8' down to shallow

I believe she won this round

So much green to mow in Ohio

Sorta scummy

Never found out what this was for

Can you make out the water volleyball net top center?

Back to Ashtabula.  This is the 'lift bridge' from the Ashtabula River into Lake Erie.  The road leads to Bridge Street, described in the plaque below.  We didn't see the bridge in the up position all the while we were there.  I think they were doing some repairs.

Bridge goes up on the hour and the half hour

Not real sure what this bridge does....

A walk down Bridge Street toward the bridge

Driving thru town we saw this church spire.  Kind of an unusual shape:

 Looking both ways from the Erie breakwater:

Sandy beach beyond Eloise

There's a lighthouse at the far end in this picture

Optical zoom (18X) brings it in better

The county our park is in, Jefferson, claims the shortest and the longest covered bridges in the US.  The shortest is 18', dunno about the longest.  Here are a couple that we visited:

The steel extension was added in 1910

 
Ashtabula county has numerous barn quilts.  We used the handy locator map and tried to find some.  Well, we couldn't find them.  We came upon this on a barn belonging to a dairy:

 
And later we came upon this quilt that was on the side of a house:

 
 
There's a town 40 miles south of our park here called Warren, OH.  It is where Mr. Packard built his first Packard automobile.  His factory was here from 1899 to 1903, when it moved to Detroit.  Packard competed with Cadillac and other high end cars.  Sadly, it went out of business for good in 1958, having tried to merge with Studebaker in its final years.

National Packard Museum

1931 Packard Phaeton with windscreen in front of third seat

1937 Packard 2 door

The '37 Packard above was the same model that the square dance caller (Steve Turney) had in his youth.  Steve and his wife Amy, taught us to dance in 1988 at Pope AFB, NC.  He says he really loved that car!  It looks like you could put a double-wide bed in the back:

Following, to me, is one of the most beautiful cars here. This 1956 Packard convertible.  Notice the push button shift on the column in the cab.  It cost close to $6,000 which was quite a bit in those days.  It had the highest production horsepower of its day, 310 hp.

Info for Caribbean

1956 Caribbean Convertible

Next up is a really neat convertible, with a rumble seat.  It has a windscreen for the rumble.  Eloise and I looked at this from the standpoint of getting into the rear seat.  On the passenger side are a series of steps.  Even so, a pretty large step was necessary:

1936 Packard Convertible the official Pace Car for Indy for 1936

Steps Into Rumble Seat

There were lots of interesting cars and we spent about 2 1/2 hours drooling over them.

1908 Packard

1903 Model F 12HP Built Here in Warren

1925 Sertling-Knight 5 Passenger Sedan

Showroom Floor Late Models

Showroom Floor of Late Models

 

Push button door handles

1953 Packard Pan-American

Can't decipher the info card....

And here's a beauty:

1934 Packard Coupe - Roadster

 The gas filler was built into its left taillight.  

There were so many first innovations that Packard came up with.  We took pictures of the framed really long list, but it isn't legible.  A few of them were:
1st to employ constant windshield wipers (vacuum)
1st to employ the H pattern gear shift
1st to use a steering wheel instead of the 'tiller' handle
1st to  place the steering wheel on the left side
1st to use a double door latch - now universal
1st to provide a storage area in the dash (glove box)
1st to provide sun visors
1st to have brakes at all 4 wheels 
The list goes on.  A truly remarkable legacy.  
 
Eloise keeps plugging away at Sam and Natalie's wedding quilt!

Next stop, Chapman State Park, PA