Chasing waterfalls, part one

I know the song says “don’t go chasing waterfalls,” but that’s exactly what I found myself doing last week.

I needed to buy more green yarn for a project I’m working on, and I discovered that only 3 stores in the Cleveland area sold that particular brand (Cascade 220 for those readers who knit). I could have bought it online, but I like to buy local whenever possible. Add in the fact that this was the last week of the Yarn Discovery Tour, which encourages buying from local yarn stores, and I chose to drive out to Olmsted Falls to make my purchase.

What a cute town! I rarely have a reason to drive to the western suburbs of Cleveland, and unfortunately there were no US routes convenient to my destination, so I took I-480 most of the way. The yarn store, Peg’s Knit ‘n Spin, is located in a historic district called Grand River Junction. I didn’t go into any other shops, because I knew I’d be tempted to buy something else and now is not the time to be making impulse purchases.

After I bought the yarn, I asked Peg if she knew where the falls were that the town is named after. She vaguely replied, “oh, they’re somewhere,” and went on to say that she didn’t live in Olmsted Falls. Huh, I thought, wouldn’t you still know where a feature like a waterfall was? So I took off and after stopping at my car I decided to walk down the street towards a covered bridge that looked promising.

Before stopping at the bridge, though, I saw a sign for a nature trail and abruptly headed that way. I could hear the sound of running water and walked towards it half-expecting to see a waterfall. I found instead a lot of large flat rocks with some water running over them, but nothing dramatic (perhaps it would be after some rain). There were a few people enjoying the scenery, and one man fishing in the middle of the river. I continued walking, following a path that led up some stone steps, and along a gravel and sand walkway. I wished I was wearing sneakers, but my sandals were sturdy enough to allow me to scramble up more flat rocks to see further upstream.

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I continued exploring by walking underneath the covered bridge, which led me to a different trail and lo and behold that’s where the falls were! Once again, there were some flat rocks that I could walk out onto to get a better look, and it’s a good thing I did that because otherwise there wasn’t much to see. Based on the plaque explaining the falls, I could now see why someone in town might not know they were there. Sometimes, though, an hour is all it takes.

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