This was not my first trip to the park, but it was my first trip since it got promoted from a National Recreation Area to a National Park. The first time I went, I wasn’t collecting stamps yet either. (In all, it was not the best first visit, as I had a colossal case of the butts at the time- typical early teenager- and sat down on the edge of the towpath and refused to hike any further at one point.)
This visit was much more productive. I got three stamps at the Canal Visitor Center, thanks to the park website which features a list of all the potential stamps at the park. I’m not sure yet whether I think it’s a good idea to have the stamp list ahead of time, or whether it degrades the discovery process. If I hadn’t had the list ahead of time, I wouldn’t have known to ask at the counter for the Underground Railroad stamp, which has to be requested, for some reason, and isn’t put out with the other stamps.
We went to the Canal Visitor Center, which has absolutely no signage, so finding it was a big problem. The address wouldn’t show up as an attraction or park for my parents’ GPS until they were about 6 miles away. We had old-fashioned Google Maps directions, which claimed that the park was 276 feet from the turnoff onto Hillside Road, which was also not true. We went about two miles down Hillside Rd to get to the visitor center, only finding it because of my previous knowledge that canals are usually down by a river, and therefore we needed to go downhill and find some water. There was a great demonstration of how a lock works, which my daughter loved. She watched with rapt attention. We didn’t see all of the park- I would love to visit the waterfalls, and get the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad stamps, but that can be for another trip.
