First stop - northern Ohio! I had read that Cuyahoga Valley National Park was one of the more dog-friendly national parks, allowing dogs on the majority of trails. So my original plan was to explore the park for most of the day with Oats, and since there's waterfalls I figured there would be enough water spots for her to cool off. However, like most things I plan, that didn't quite work out.

DOG-FRIENDLY STOP #1: Cuyahoga Valley National Park - Brandywine Gorge Trail

We started the day exploring the Brandywine Gorge Trail, one of the more famous trails with a large waterfall. It was a beautiful, shaded trail, but the bottom of the falls was closed off so we had less photo opportunities than I'd hoped. We could see the falls but unless we went down a lot of sketchy stairs, we couldn't get a great view. And I'll jump out of an airplane before I'll walk open wooden stairs (yes...issues).

Even though we found this pretty stream for Oats to take a dip, the temperature was at 95 and extremely high humidity, so it just wasn't quite enough to cool her off. We hiked 2 miles around the trail, playing in the water and taking some photos (and lots of water breaks) for about an hour, but by then she was completely overheated. I didn't want to push her to the point of heat stroke (that would be a bit of a vacation ruiner) so I bailed on my plan to spend the whole day hiking the park.

DOG-FRIENDLY STOP #2: Bow Wow Beach Dog Park, Stow

Instead, I quickly found (thanks Google) a little dog park with a beach about 20 minutes away in Stow, Ohio. If you're ever in this area, I would highly recommend Bow Wow Beach Dog Park. She had a blast swimming and playing with other pups, but the best part was the dog washing station on the way out. They have 3 spots sectioned off with hoses and I was able to give Oatsy a little bath before we left (the water left her a tad green - eek).

DOG-FRIENDLY STOP #3: Mitchell's Homemade Ice Cream, Solon

While Oats dried off, we sat outside at Mitchell's Homemade Ice Cream shop, which allows dogs in their outdoor seating area. We each had our own ice cream and it was fantastic. Ellie came along too because at least 10 people stopped to say hi to Oats, and she likes to greet them with her elephant. That always gets a laugh.

DOG-FRIENDLY STOP #4: Chagrin Falls, Ohio

Our lovely Airbnb hosts recommended we drive over to Chagrin Falls to walk around while the sun was setting. It was such a cute little town with a beautiful waterfall and just a generally nice place to walk around with Oats. We were both pretty hot and exhausted from the day, so we pretty much just walked around for an hour or so and snapped some photos.

We also stopped at one more little waterfall on the way back and walked around a bit. So we had a pretty nice day in northern Ohio....exploring waterfalls and eating ice cream. Andddd trying to stay cool (failed).