Esther and I took a trip out to Cleveland, OH recently specifically to go to the R&RHOF. Esther wanted to drive out using US 6 which runs across the northern tier of PA going through many small towns and past the Grand Canyon of PA and through the Allegheny National Forest - in other words the slow scenic route requiring two days to get to Cleveland.

I included a small detour up to the Erie, PA area and then along the southern shore of Lake Erie to see the lighthouses in Erie and those between Erie and Cleveland. We had seen a number of them several years ago on another trip to Cleveland while my brother lived there (one of the 17 states he's lived in between 1969 and 2010).

We had off and on rain during the drive through PA and Ohio this day. Luckily it held off the times we were actually at the lighthouses- although it did affect the quality of the photos.

Our first stop was the Erie Land Light LH. It sits in the midst of a residential area on the shore of the bay. There is a nice little park for kids to play in literally right in front of it. Unfortunately the park and the power lines in the area make it hard to get completely clean shots of the entire LH.

Here are some photos of the Erie Land LH including a list of the Keepers-












Here is a photo of the Keeper's House-




Here's a photo taken from the North Pierhead LH in Presque Isle State Park

We left the Erie Land LH and on our way out to Presque Isle State Park for the other official lighthouses in Erie we drove over to the Erie Yacht Club to get a look at the faux lighthouse there.

Here's a photo of it - unfortunately the people in the way would not leave. :-)



We left there and drove on out to the Presque Isle State Park. It's a nice long ride out through a very nice park with plenty of beaches to get to the two lighthouses - Presque Isle LH and North Pierhead LH. You get to Presque Isle LH first. It's viewable from the road but you get a clearer view of it from the beach which is a short walk through the sand. The house and grounds are closed and posted as private property.

Here are some photos from the beach view-










We continued on our way down the road to the North Pierhead LH. You drive past the active Coast Guard base to get there. There are some interesting floating houses right next to the base- they may even be housing for the coast guard. I could not determine that one way or the other. There is a replica of the North Pierhead LH at one of the floating houses.


Here's a photo of the floating house and replica-




Here's a shot of the North Pierhead LH-





Here's a view of the North Pierhead LH taken from the Erie Land Light LH-





We left there and started on our way to Ohio.

We wound our way to the next lighthouse on our trip- Conneaut West Breakwater. You don't get that close to this one. It's an unusual design- although the same design shows up again to the west of Cleveland as well. The weather was not the best- but not the worst. We continued to have rain off and on but never that heavy - especially while we were at the lighthouses. However, the weather did have an eddct on the clarity of the photos I took.

Here's a photo of the lighthouse-




We left there and continued west towards Cleveland and made our next scheduled stop at Ashtabula for the lighthouse there. It again is a bit hard to get a good clear close-up view of this light. It also is close in design to another lighthouse west of Cleveland.



We left Ashtabula and made our way to Fairport for the lighthouses there. I thought at first we might get there early enough to get into the Fairport Harbor Marine museum and Lighthouse but there were two problems with that concept. It closes at 6 PM and we were going to get there about 6:05 PM and after rereading my notes I realized that it wasn't open at all on Fridays and this was a Friday so we were out of luck both ways to Sunday (which is slightly appropriate since we returned on Sunday and did get into both the Museum and climbed the lighthouse - but that's for a later post).

We had been to Fairport, OH and it's lighthouses several years ago on our previous visit to the area. On that trip I got a photo of a coffee shop on the road to the lighthouses that seems to have either moved or gone out of business. Here's a photo I posted then- they spelled the name of the coffee shop both right and wrong.



It seems that the recession has hit lighthouse related businesses in Fairport very hard- the Lighthouse Grille directly across the street from the Grand River LH also seems to have failed.

We spent sometime walking around the grounds of the Grand River LH and here are some photos of it- again it can be difficult to not get wires in some photos of the lighthouse.
















You can see the Fairport Harbor West Breakwater LH from the Grand River LH which makes sense since it is it's replacement. you can walk out on the breakwater but we did not do this. you can also get some different views of the light from the Headlands State Park which we also did not do this trip. Here's a photo we did take.





This was our last stop of the day on Friday. We continued on to our hotel in Salon, OH and headed out the next morning to see some lighthouses west of Cleveland.

Saturday was a much brighter day. The weather was much more cooperative for a trip to Marblehead and other lighthouses and other sites.

We decided to drive out to Marblehead first and then drive east towards Cleveland.

We found ourselves driving over a bridge in Sandusky, OH called the Thomas Edison Memorial Bridge. Esther asked me why it was named that and my reply was that I wasn't sure but if I had to guess I'd say that either he was born in the area or did some of his work there. I Goggled it when I got back to the hotel and found that Edison was born in Milan, OH which is just a few miles south of Sandusky, OH.

We got to the Marblehead State Park but unfortunately it was the third Saturday not the second Saturday of the month so the Museum in the Keeper's House was closed. The Marblehead LH is also closed so we were satisfied with just spending some time at the park looking at both Cedar Point and the Bass Islands. You can see the Oliver Perry Memorial in the distance. I had mistakenly read somewhere that you can see the Cedar Point LH from Marblehead. It actually said you could see Cedar Point amusement park from Marblehead.

Here's a photo of the Keeper's house-





Here's some photos of the Marblehead lighthouse -











We continued on down the road and went completely around the peninsula and back over to the mainland to see the lighthouse at Cedar Point.

We drove through downtown Sandusky, OH and over the Cedar Point causeway to the park. I followed the advice I had gotten and stayed to the left as I entered the parking lot for the park. Unfortunately due to the nice weather and the fact that there was also a boat show going on that day it seemed they had extra help on parking lot duty. The young man who asked me if I was going to the park or the boat show responded "What lighthouse? " to my response that I was going to neither but intended to just go to the lighthouse. I just gave him my $10 and chalked it up to bad timing.

You drive around about 2/3 rds of the park passing a number of buildings, restaurants, marinas and roller coasters until you come upon a sign that says "Lighthouse Point". It's a section of the park that is both a RV camping area and also holds cabins that you can rent to stay in and they literally surround the spot - or point- that holds the lighthouse. I do wish I could have been with Dave when he ran his trip that included getting into this lighthouse but that was another example of bad timing for me.


We walked around the lighthouse using the Paul Brady Method of Photography- in other words move your feet. Here are some of the results of that.-














I also took some photos of the AToN just off the shore from Lighthouse Point and looking out towards Marblehead LH.








We left Cedar Point LH with our next destination in my mind- Huron Harbor LH. We took a slight detour on the way there, though.

Esther had seen something in downtown Sandusky as we passed through that she wanted to see a bit closer. There is a very nice park you drive through on the main street that includes gardens, a floral clock, other floral decorations and some of the lighthouses left over from a fund raiser done last year. We walked through the park and also stopped in and did a tour of the Merry-Go-Round Museum located in the old post office.

You even get to take a ride on the carousel they have on display. The museum includes various types of horse and other animals used on carousels from different manufacturers. The museum is located in Sandusky, OH mostly by accident. There is a manufacturer of carousels in Ohio but it isn't in Sandusky. The post office was one of the sites where first day issues were done when the USPS had an issue of stamps celebrating merry go rounds.

Here are some photos of the museum-








This one shows the calliope that when it plays you can hear it outside of the building while inside it literally hurts your ears.





Here is a photo of one of the floral arrangements in the park-





Here are the surviving lighthouses from the fundraiser - the last one is found inside the Merry-Go-Round Museum-














We took our leave of the sights of Sandusky, OH and drove on to our next lighthouse- Huron Harbor LH.

We drove to the parking lot of the museum that sits near the pier that you walk out on to get a view of the Huron Harbor LH. It sits at the end of a concrete pier and then a breakwater. The walk out to where you can see the lighthouse is about a mile. This is the lighthouse that is a twin of Conneaut east of Cleveland. Here is a photo of the lighthouse.





We left Huron, OH and continued on to the next stop- Vermillion, OH. We opted to not visit the museum while here but to just take a walk by the replica lighthouse here. I was trying to get back to Cleveland with enough time to go to the Cultural Gardens and get to our dinner reservation at a Hungarian restaurant that Esther wanted to eat at.

Here's a photo of the replica of the Vermillion LH- the original is actually still in use as the East Charity Shoal LH off Cape Vincent, NY near Tibbett's Point on Lake Ontario.





We left here and continued towards Cleveland with Lorain, OH our last stop of the day for lighthouses. This is another place that it's difficult to get a good up close view from onshore of the two breakwater lights.

Here are photos of each lighthouse in Lorain Harbor-

Lorain West Breakwater LH





Lorain East Breakwater LH -





Here's' a photo with both of them at the same time-




We drove back to Cleveland and took a drive through the area where the Cultural Gardens are and toured several of them and then went back to the hotel to change for dinner.

We spent the first part of Sunday touring the R&RHOF which was our main reason for the trip to Cleveland. It's a nice museum but I was a bit underwhelmed by it. It's all surface and little depth. It is mostly a collection of memorabilia with very little historical descriptions. There are some but it just seemed a bit lacking in hard info to me. They do have a very nice display where you can look up a specific artist and then go see who they were influenced by and in turn who they influenced. There is also a nice display where you can listen to and read about the top 500 songs of R&R.

I personally find the R&RHOF to be a bit of a farce- many artists in there have no business being there and many not in there should be- IMHO of course. The R&RHOF Foundation does much good for music education and the museum is a fun place to visit.

It's worth a visit but I found the now closed R&RHOF Annex that was in NYC a bit better. I also liked the Music Experience Project in Seattle bankrolled by Paul Allen of Microsoft fame. It seemed to give more depth to the musicians it covered. It concentrates on Jimi Hendrix and other musicians from the Pacific northwest. It also provides support to music education.

We left the R&RHOF and drove back to Fairport, OH so we could get into the Grand River LH and the Maritime Museum. I knew it was open.

We made one short stop on the way to see the Cleveland East Entrance LH -




We climbed the lighthouse and I took these photos from the top- including this one of the closed Lighthouse Grill across the street.





Here's a lighthouse house across the street in a different direction-





Here's a view looking out over Lake Erie-





Here's a close-up of the Fairport Harbor Breakwater LH from the Grand River LH-





We spent some time walking through the museum and speaking with the volunteers before leaving. We drove to Chagrin Falls, OH a place we had visited with my brother on our last trip. It always makes me think of Frostbite Falls from the Rocky & Bullwinkle cartoon series for some reason.


Here are a couple of views of the falls from either side of the street.

Thanks Dennis. I especially liked the Cedar Point pictures. I can tell you have a better lens than mine, great long shots.

Laura,

Thanks.

Actually it's probably an obsolete camera at this point. I could probably get a better one fairly cheap these days.

It's a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ5 with 12X optical zoom. It still works fine and I'm in no rush to replace it.

Dennis

ANOTHER great tour and photos from the tourist guides Dennis and Esther!!
Thanks for sharing!!
Rick

Great stuff Dennis!

Thanks Rick & Bob.

I try to make it interesting.

Hey Dennis, ...Thanks for sharing your adventure with us. It's threads like this that make frequent visits to the CF so worthwhile. Thank you for taking all the time to post the pictures, add the commentary, and keeping the CF so interesting!

Bob

I try- it's hard making an uneventful visit to and often visited lighthouse interesting.

It's one reason why I'll add non-lighthouse related stops sometimes. I've even considered using another lesson from Paul- take pictures of my meals but i never remember to take my camera into the restaurants.

Dennis

Great pics and narrative Dennis !!!

Especially like those of Erie Land & Fairport Breakwater.

Dennis, Great job on the travelogue and pictures. Adding local sites of interest is a great way to do things - sometimes keeps the others in the party OK with the trip since it isn't all lighthouses. And, some of those sites are really interesting and well worth the visit.

Sorry I missed it when you first posted it, Dennis -- but excellent job. Thanks for taking us along. There are a lot of Erie lights I haven't seen yet. Maybe someday.

I missed this the first time around too Dennis. Very nice! This is the first time I've noticed how similar the Erie Land and Fairport Main lights are, same materials, same design with Erie Land being a bit shorter.

Thanks. I'm always happy to read that others like my posts- I just try and give back to those whose similar travelouges have brought me enjoyment.

Dennis

Your shots of the Erie lights great. I just returned from Erie, my daughter lives up there. I visited the three main lighthouses, I only recently learned of the Yacht Club LH, no pic of that yet. I've also been to Conneaut, Ashtabula and Fairport. My hubby is balking about heading any further up but I really want to see Marblehead.

Since we drive to Erie from Philly, and usually only stay three days, he can be forgiven for not wanting to take another long ride while we're there, but he's gonna have to someday.

Thanks for your Lake Erie tour!

Phillygirl,

Glad you enjoyed the trip. I actually live near Philly myself.

I'd try and time the trip to Marblehead for a weekend that the museum is open- and stop in at the Carosuel museum as well. It's a fun short visit.

Heck- if hubby likes rock and roll talk him into a weekend in cleaveland for that as well.

Dennis

If any of you are going to Cleveland, go in the summer and take a trip on the Good Times III. My daughter lives in Cleveland and works at Cleveland State Univ. A bunch of her friends on out on the Good Times early in August and they invited me to go with them. When Glen and I had been there several years before, we got some half decent pictures of the Cleveland lights from the Wm. S. Mather parking area. I got much better pictures on the cruise on the Good Times.

Ellie

Thanks for the hint about the cruise. My daughter now lives in Columbus, OH and we've talked about taking a road trip to Cleveland to see the lights. We'll make sure we do the Good Times III. Thanks!

Nice pictures Dennis. Wish I would have known you were coming this way. Going from Huron to Vermilion you drove right past the end of our street. Hope you were listening to some Poco while you were driving.

Tom

Tom,

Thanks. I try- keep in mind I only post the best few out of the literally hundreds of photos taken- gotta love digital.


I'm sure I played some Poco on the trip. Esther and I took turns choosing an artist to play on the ipod.

Dennis

Dennis,

Your pictures were great. I've spent several trips doing the same route as yours (when I lived in Michigan) and seeing the same lighthouses as you did. Your photos brought back some wonderful memories (and were better than my photos!!!!). Outstanding job. Thanks!

Carol

Perchance, is Waldameer's old carousel at that museum?

Sorry. I don't recall which carousel it is that is at the museum.

Dennis

I just checked the website.

Here's a link to the info on it-

http://www.merrygoroundmuseum.org/carousel.html

Dennis