Summer 2025 Reflections
The light has changed tone, timing and feel here in Cleveland, and the trees are starting to turn orange and gold. Summer is coming to a close. It’s with great contentment that I say it was another good one.
A major joy for me was my 12 year old daughter not only surviving, but enjoying, an eight day, seven night backpacking trip in Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore (Upper Peninsula, MI) while she was at summer camp. Nothing but good stuff there.
I’m also happy to report that I accomplished my five Great Lakes summer intentions shared back in May.
In mid-May I joined other Cleveland Metroparks volunteers for a beach clean-up at Euclid Beach. At the end of May my husband and I joined local nonprofit Drink Local Drink Tap for 4 Miles 4 Water. It was an unseasonably cold morning on May 31st for the event (in the 40s) and we were fully in jackets and hats while wind whipped up off the Cuyahoga River. Oh Cleveland!
Memorial Day weekend our family took a leisurely day trip to Huron, OH. In mid-June my older daughter and I had 20 hours in Holland, MI and in early July my husband, younger daughter and I had 36 hours in Rochester, NY.
On a Saturday morning in early August I checked the final item off the list when I went out for a guided kayak with my cousin and friend Sara. We went out with the local company 41 North Coastal Adventures on a group kayak from the Emerald Necklace Marina in Lakewood. The marina, which is a Cleveland Metroparks facility, sits about 5,000 feet from the mouth of Lake Erie on the Rocky River.
There were about 16 people with three guides. We were oriented to kayak basics and safety before setting out into the river. The stretch of river leading to the lake was busy with boat traffic. Kayaking skills had to quickly elevate to at least be able to move out of the way and yield to larger boats coming through.
The weather that morning seemed perfect with little wind and warmth but not strong heat. I say “seemed” because two days prior, northeast Ohio had experienced a rainy, stormy day and it turned out those dynamics were still coursing through Lake Erie, albeit at a more limited level. The water out in the open lake had a significant swell to it. We weren’t getting tossed around, but significantly bobbing up and down. Someone who experiences motion sickness might not have loved it.
But I did love it – being out in my inland sea. I got to see cliffs, coves and waterfront properties from a new perspective. I could see downtown Cleveland in the distance in one direction and the curve of the Lakewood shoreline heading down towards Rocky River and Bay Village in the other. The time moving through water reaffirmed that I live in a specific place, a unique location on this earth, and that in itself can be an anchor amidst the turbulence of the times.
