The Great Smoky Mountains was the end of my adventures in America’s National Parks for a long time. The next time that I went to a National Park was in Ohio. In Ohio there is a lesser–known park called Cuyahoga National Park. Nestled in the Cuyahoga Valley, this National Park was founded in the year 2000, making it one of the newest National Parks in the country. Every year my family and I would visit my grandparents at their home outside of Detroit, Michigan. We could never drive straight through because my mom would not want to spend an entire day in the car. This meant that we got to stop at different places. This year after doing a little research I was able to find Cuyahoga National Park. This National Park is a lot quieter, and it is different from what you may expect. Due to the fact that it was created much later than a lot of the other parks, making it hard to piece the land together. To solve this, they incorporated a town and multiple farms into the park itself. By buying the farms and partnering with the farms, it creates a self-sustaining neighborhood right in the middle of the vast network of trails.  

Our destination that day was in Pittsburgh. Five hours from Philadelphia, it seemed like the perfect mid-point between home and Michigan. This meant that if we left in the morning, we could hit the park by lunch. On the way, I decided to do some research. Cuyahoga National Park was created along the historic Ohio canals. There are historic railways and historic farms that show visitors what life was like there in the 1800s. It is also famous for its waterfalls and has hundreds of miles of paths for people to explore. It is a unique place to go to as people usually think of wild forests, deserts, or wide-open environments for National Parks, but this one is not just about the environment it is about the culture that has been practiced there for hundreds of years.  

To get there you follow a winding path through fields filled with blooming flowers during the spring. These wild fields are a shock compared to the highways that are only a few miles down the road. This winding road leads into a small town that is home to a quaint collection of buildings such as a church and a restaurant named The Winking Lizard Tavern. This kitschy restaurant is home to a menu full of wings and a habitat of lizards. Free popcorn also sits on the side ready for anyone to take. Things like this make this National Park as unique as it gets.