Ready to Strike Up the Band

The instruments to be played by the roots music group The Steel Wheels are in place and ready to be picked up once members of the band take the stage. The image was made at the GAR Hall in Peninsula, Ohio, a venue the band has played at numerous times in recent years.

Bike Riding Along the Railroad

I’m aboard a Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad train traversing the Cuyahoga Valley National Park.

The train is headed north through Peninsula. There is a trail that leads to the park in town that runs right next to the railroad tracks.

A man who probably just rented a bicycle from a shop in town is headed for the park on that trail. He never looked up as the train passed and came to a halt for its station stop.

In the background is the Cuyahoga River.

Tunnel Vision

I’ve walked on this segment of the towpath trail in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park numerous times over the years.

Yet during a recent walk I saw something about this culvert that takes the trail beneath the tracks of the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad north of Peninsula, Ohio.

For some reason on this day the culvert resembled a tunnel in a way I’d never seen before.

The culvert hasn’t changed. It’s the same dimensions that it’s always been. I just was seeing it differently by making an association between the interior of the culvert and the trail on the other side.

I guess all of these years I had tunnel vision when I came upon this spot.

Simple Pleasures

Spent some time on a recent Saturday afternoon at one of my favorite places, the Winking Lizard, in one of my favorite towns, Peninsula, Ohio.

Sat at the bar and drank a pint of Columbus Brewing Company IPA and at  bag of popcorn and a salad.

Watched Indiana edge Arkansas in a second-round NIT game on TV and then caught the northbound Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad train makes its station stop.

Afterwards I went for a walk on the towpath trail.

All in all not a bad way to spend part of a Saturday afternoon.

Winter Afternoon in Peninsula

It had been a while since I’d been able to get out with my camera. Car troubles and other matters had kept me at home as winter ravaged Northeast Ohio.

More than a week into January, I finally got everything squared away and was able to get out of the house to so some winter photography.

I was going to watch a college basketball game in Akron on a Tuesday night so I left the house early and stopped by Peninsula to see what I might find.

I knew better than to expect to catch a train on the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad. That operation was on hiatus until later in the month. But you can still do a lot without a train.

Several years ago I photographed the Peninsula train station during winter when it had numerous icicles hanging on it. That was not the case on this day because the sun had melted them.

A step box on the platform had accumulated some snow and the platform area itself had footprints made by visitors to the Cuyahoga Valley National Park.

Snow no longer covered the rails, but in the late day sunlight the ties on the siding were barely visible.

At the far north end of town sat a baggage car that had been used as a prop when the Polar Express trains were operating before Christmas. Beneath that car was bare ground, the only bare ground to be seen.

There weren’t many people around on this day. It was still cold and winter is not a time of year when many people want to visit the Cuyahoga Valley National Park.

 

Peninsula Canyon

The Cuyahoga River winds its way through Peninsula, a small town surrounded by the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. Right after the river passes beneath the Towpath Trail, it enters a canyon-like setting.

Maybe canyon isn’t the right word to use here because there is a steep cliff on just one side of the passage.  There are more impressive cliffs to be found, but this is Northeast Ohio where the geographic features are modest, yet still noticeable.

I made these images on a winter afternoon when I was looking to get out with my camera for a while and capture some of winter’s beauty.

North Pole

It is not literally the North Pole, just a recreation of it for the benefit of passengers riding the Polar Express trains of the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad. This North Pole is in Peninsula, Ohio, between Cleveland and Akron.

No Bird Activity Today

I thought there might be some waterfowl hanging around this wetlands in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park on the edge of Peninsula, Ohio.

In a previous visit there had been a number of ducks flying around and landing in this pool of water.

But on this day no birds were to be. It’s still a pretty view, though.

The Black and White World of Winter

Winter scenes often lends themselves to black and white photography because of the natural contrast provided between white snow and dark objects.

I didn’t make these image in black and white originally, but converted them in Photoshop.

All were made from the dome car of a Cuyahoga Valley Valley Scenic Railroad train during a February trip in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park.

It was snowing when the train left Akron and some of that snow stuck to the windows. Hence the spots that you see in the images.

The top image was made in Brecksville and features the Cuyahoga River and the Ohio Route 82 bridge over the Cuyahoga River.

The middle image shows a house along the Cuyahoga in Peninsula, Ohio. The bottom image portrays a lock on the Ohio & Erie Canal known as Deep Lock. The bridge in the latter image spans the canal.

And Now for the Rest of the Photograph

You’re looking at the rest of an image that I posted recently. That image focused on the pumpkin and a portion of the corn stalks that are immediately behind it.

I had zoomed in on the pumpkin in the original image, but in this image I zoomed out to show more context.

The location is the front porch of a gift shop in Peninsula, Ohio. I wanted to photograph it because it contains two icons that I always link with autumn: pumpkins and corn stalks.

Both are symbolic of the harvest season, which always casts a comforting feeling in my mind. Spring may be the season of hope, summer may be the season of play and winter is the season of survival. But autumn is the season of warmth and comfort.

Who doesn’t enjoy the bright orange of a pumpkin on a sunny day? As for the corn stalks, well corn is a food product harvested in the fall, but the stalks remind me of my boyhood days of roaming corn fields after the farmer had brought in the corn from the field and all that was left were the bent over stalks that had had their ears of corn removed and shucked by the picker.

It has been many years since I roamed a corn field after the harvest. I’ve seen many such fields, but never had the opportunity to roam one. Even if I did it would not hold the same allure as it did when I was a child.

As an adult you recognize that roaming someone else’s property is trespassing. And childhood wonder gives way to other ways of looking at the world.

Yet I’ve never forgotten what it was like to feel free as I roamed over those fields. Images such as this help bring those memories back.