[part of the Tuesday for Travel blog series – reviews, recommendations, and stories based on our travels and excursions]

During our trip to Cleveland, Ohio, one of the travel destinations we were most excited about was Lake Erie.  Don’t get me wrong, we’ve seen many different bodies of water, but somehow neither of us had ever laid eyes on one of the Great Lakes.  We went to Huntington Beach for this “first time” exploration.

This first time could quite possibly be the last time!  Maybe a little more research into other areas would change our minds.  I wish I would have gotten a picture of the warning sign, but this area was under “high alert” for bacteria levels.  The sign said that exposing the body to the water would likely result in illness.  So armed with that little bit of knowledge, we stuck to a sand-only path and decided it wouldn’t be the “toes in the water” trip we had planned.

When we made it to the bottom of the massive staircase leading to the beach, we were quite horrified to find swimmers of all ages in the water.  Even small children were splashing away!  Maybe there was something to this warning sign that we didn’t know about and everyone else did.  We played it safe anyway and did our best to keep dry.  My father-in-law had warned us that there would be small waves similar to sound side ocean waves, but we were surprised at the larger size we actually saw.  I took this picture for proof. 🙂  Not that they were huge, but the waves were a bit bigger than we expected and we even saw a few kids body surfing.

The birds didn’t get the hazordous water warning, either. 😉

The day was perfect.  Breeze in the air, blue skies all around.

Off in the distance a cliffside shoreline framed the waters.

In the other direction, the faint city scape lined the horizon.

This tree seemed to be hanging on for dear life.

A beautiful view!

The next time we are in the vincinity, we’ll be sure to find an area without contaiminated waters.  There is a clean up project in the works though, so I’m hopeful the area will be rehabilitated with time.

I love to hear from you! Comment below.

– Nikki