Cleveland Botanical Gardens. Cleveland Museum of Natural History & Cuyahoga Valley National Park

We woke at our usual 5 am time this morning and caught up on emails and other tasks before we started our day.  We grabbed some cereal and fruit from the breakfast area of the Days Inn and checked out.  Although the motel was plain, it was in a very good location and at $50 per night was quite a bargain.  

Many of the museums in Cleveland are within a few blocks of each other over near Case Western Reserve University.  We decided to start our days at the Cleveland Botanical Gardens.  Parking in a premium in the area but visitors can park in the garage at the botanical garden for half price ($6) with paid admission.  We paid the $11 each admission to access the huge area.  We started in the two story glasshouse where there are many tropical plants from jungle and arid tropical regions.  Inside the glasshouse are a variety of brightly colored tropical birds and butterflies.  Trays of fruit were out for the fruit eating birds as well as the butterflies.

We really liked the many cacti, kalanchoe and other desert plants that are indigenous to the desert regions of southwest Madagascar.  The butterflies were spectacular.  We were especially impressed with the Blue Morphos that are beautiful in flight but fold their wings to expose only the drab undersides when resting.  When we were in Bleize several years ago we spent a lot of time chasing them and trying get a good snapshot.  We had the same problem in the glasshouse.  The morphos tended to stay in the least accessible areas making them difficult to photograph.  We were, however, able to get some photos of many of the smaller butterflies.

Upstairs in the glasshouse were many colors and varieties of orchids, vines, heliconia and other tropical plants.  Most plants were well marked with identification tags and information about the plants’ uses and unique characteristics.  There was a stream running through the glasshouse with an attractive waterfall.  There were also tortoises and chameleons loose among the plants.

From the glasshouse, we walked outside to the many themed gardens, starting in the herb garden. Like the plants in the glasshouse, everything outside was clearly labeled and maintained.  The herb and medicinal plants were arranged in attractive plantings with stone and decorative concrete paths.  We also went through the woodland garden, rose garden, topiaries and the perennial garden.  When we were in the kitchen garden we saw a family with a young woman in a Xavier sweatshirt.  Turns out that she is an occupational therapy graduate student there.  We told her about Sarah being an alumnus and that she still maintains her connection to the Xavier’s OT department.  She may well meet Sarah through a class or internship.

After leaving the Cleveland Botanical Gardens, we walked across a small urban park to the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.  I stopped along the way to purchase a hot dog from a street vendor’s cart and arrived at the museum.  With our Cincinnati Museum Center membership, our admission was free, saving us $28.  We started by walking through a collection of beautiful landscape photographs from some iconic locations around the world.  Photos from Grand Canyon, Denali, Norwegian fjords and South American rain forests.  The images were stunning in their colors and composition.

From there, we walked through the dinosaur exhibits.  They had a number of skeletons and interactive displays to give visitors a view of the diversity of dinosaur life across the world but especially in Northern Ohio.  I especially enjoyed a life sized model of a 60 foot long sauropod that had video projected on it to show how the respiratory, circulatory, digestive and reproductive systems may have functioned.  Using the projected video, the model appeared to move as the dinosaur breathed, moved blood through arteries, ate and produced eggs.  A good narration provided a lot of information on how the internal anatomy of herbivorous dinosaurs may have functioned.

We walked through the geology sections to learn more of the history of the area from the formation of the North American continent to the glaciation that shaped the Great Lakes.  There were a number of displays that show the diversity of minerals both as ores and as finished products.  We also enjoyed the display of fluorescent minerals.  Large cases around the geology area held polished egg shaped samples of minerals from around the world.

Nice displays on the area’s Native Americans gave views into the life of indigenous people in Ohio dating back as far as 10,000 years.  A replica of a burial mound showed how the same burial mounds were used by multiple cultures over the course of thousands of years.  They have artifacts from many Native American cultures even those who are not from the area that is now Ohio.

As we were leaving the Museum of Natural History we went to the outside area to see some of the plants and animals in the small courtyard.  They have two river otters in a pond area where they were romping and playing.  A small copse across from the pond had two coyotes that were relaxing and a pair of red foxes.  We sat on a bench for a while and watched the otters play then went to the car to start back toward home. 

Rather than going home on the highway we decided to come back through the Cuyahoga Valley National Park.  When Ian and Emily were in the area a few months ago they said that they enjoyed stopping in the park for a visit.  It was interesting to learn about the canal system that was built in the area to connect the Great Lakes to the Ohio/Mississippi River system.  However, by the mid 1800s the proliferation of railroads made the canals all but obsolete.  Many canals, locks, mills and other vestiges of the canal system remain in Ohio.  We visited a couple of nearby geocaches and walked out to Brandywine Falls in the park then drove on to Akron where the National Parked ended. 

We picked up I-77 near Akron and drove through heavy traffic down through Canton.  That was not surprising since we were there at rush hour.  We made it to Cambridge, Ohio by around 7 pm and stopped at Bob Evans for dinner then drove home by 10:30.

This was another very enjoyable short trip for us.  We benefitted from the tips from Ian & Emily who had been there recently.  We consulted the AA Tourbooks and got restaurant advice from TripAdvisor.