Ohio campground

We normally park on our family's property, but this year we ended up staying at Cardinal Center Campground in Marengo. It's a really nice place with a ton of campsites, a great playground, a lake and heated indoor pool!

We spent lots of time with family and friends over the last couple months.

We spent lots of time with our friends Chrissy and Shaun.
The kids loved sending Wade off to school and waiting for him to return afterwards.

Just before leaving we were able to catch one of Benji's basketball games.

Cuyahoga Valley National Park

We LOVE National Parks and when I realized there was one only a few hours from where I grew up, I was kind of embarrassed that I hadn't been. When I started researching it, I found that it received that designation in 2000, so not too long before I moved away. Okay, then I didn't feel SO bad. There are no RV campgrounds there, so that was another reason it's taken so long to visit, because we did try two years ago.

So finally we made it to the park and because it is quite large and spread out, 

we just picked one area to explore, the Ledges. It was a fantastic selection!

The trail takes you thru all these amazing rock formations, caves and slots. 

The kids loved this section which dropped them about 8ft under us. They climbed thru it over and over again.

Look for Asher's red jacket below to appreciate the scale of this place!

This area is known as the Ledges Overlook and is a popular location to watch the sunset.

We were pleasantly surprised by this park, just wish we came a week earlier to see the leaves still on the trees. Next time we'll probably stay at a motel in the area so that we can explore more of the park.

Ohio Bird Sanctuary

Here's another place I had never heard of when I lived in Ohio, but I now love, the Ohio Bird Sanctuary in Mansfield. It's a rehabilitation facility for birds that also provides education about conservation to the public. My Aunt Jaci spent the day with us hiking the trails and admiring the birds.

There are opportunities along the trails for kids to learn about birds, the dangers they face and conservation.

Rescued birds that can not be released back into the wild are kept in enclosures at the sanctuary, some becoming animal ambassadors that are used to educate the public. Seeing different kinds of owls, eagles and hawks up close was exciting for all of us. A sweet, little chicken named Dolly lives here and will RUN to you when you call her so you can pet her. We were all laughing so hard at how quickly she responded to us.

But our favorite part was walking thru the songbird aviary where a variety of birds live and a quarter buys you a cup of food to feed them. The bluejays are not shy and will land on you!

This one grabbed Asher's cup right out of his hand!

The Sanctuary holds classes for kids and other events thru out the year. 

It's definitely a place we will return to again and again!