Part Four: Columbus to Erie
The Two-Week Loop: 1. Houston to Nashville › 2. Nashville to Louisville › 3. Louisville to Columbus › 4. Columbus to Erie › 5. Erie to Houston
Part three left us in Columbus on a Saturday night. Part four is what happens when you look at Erie on the map, look at everything between here and there, and decide to do the whole thing in one Sunday.
Cleveland gets the morning and most of the afternoon, and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame eats the bulk of that on purpose. Then the day pivots hard: out of the city, into the woods, and suddenly we’re standing in front of an empty stone castle in a county park that nobody warned us about, buying apples at a farm, and watching a waterfall run through the middle of a town.
The last stretch is pure American roadside. A rocking chair the size of a two-story house. The Smolen-Gulf Bridge, longest covered bridge in the country, which earns the bragging. And then a sunset arrival in Erie, 270 miles later, with the light doing exactly what you’d want it to do. Ohio and Pennsylvania closed this day out like they’d rehearsed it.
Trip Route Map
The Stops
Cleveland Script Sign at Edgewater Park – Cleveland, OH
One of Cleveland's big script signs, this one at Edgewater Park with the downtown skyline and Lake Erie behind it.
Rock & Roll Hall of Fame – Cleveland, OH
I.M. Pei's glass pyramid on the Lake Erie shore, Cleveland's shrine to rock and roll, stuffed with stage costumes, smashed guitars, handwritten lyrics, and the inductees' whole story.
Squire’s Castle
A stone gatekeeper's house in the Cleveland Metroparks, all that ever got built of a Gilded Age estate, now an empty shell people picnic around.
Patterson Fruit Farm
A seven-generation family farm market in Chesterland with fresh cider, pies, maple syrup, and a football field of pumpkins every fall. Come on a weekday if you can; October Sundays are a mob scene.
Smolen-Gulf Covered Bridge – OH
The longest covered bridge in the United States, a 613-foot timber span over the Ashtabula River in Ohio's covered-bridge country.
Erie Sign at Bayview Park – Erie, PA
The big ERIE letters above the bayfront marina at Bayview Park. Best at sunset.
Horse Drawn Earth – Erie, PA
A junk-metal horse pulling a steel globe in a midtown Erie lot. Quick, free, and strange.
The Ones That Got a Wave, Not a Post
A Wegmans run kept the cooler honest, and the hotel bed in Erie was a welcome upgrade after a day of signs, castles, and bridges. No federal casualties on this leg, mostly because we didn’t give Washington anything to close.
All that’s left is the long way home, which turns out to be the biggest leg of all: part five, Erie to Houston.