We have so been looking forward to a day of sunshine and fun. This morning we traveled to Headlands Beach State Park. Aside from the beautiful beach, the park is also home to Headlands Dune State Nature Preserve. You can read more about the dunes here. There are a large number of birds that make the dunes their home as well as many who migrate through the area. In the warmer months, monarch butterflies are plentiful in the milkweed. A wide variety of foliage grows at Headlands such as switchgrass, cocklebur, sand-drop seed and sea rocket. Cottonwood trees cover the further lying areas near the entrance to the park.
Here are some photos from our day in the sun:
Entering the nature preserve
A view of Mentor Lighthouse from the preserve
The dunes will be green within a month or so.
After walking a while through the preserve, we finally catch a glimpse of our beautiful Lake Erie.
We spent the day looking for beach glass.
We ended up finding a couple hundred pieces in all--a very nice catch for one morning. More on beach glass in another post.
Mentor Headlands, along with most Ohio beaches, are not combed and maintained until mid-May, in preparation for Memorial Day and the start of the Summer season. Until then, the beaches are covered with driftwood. Here you can see some large pieces of wood that had washed up from the Winter ice flow.
The kids had such fun making teepees and lean-tos with the driftwood.
Everything was going well until we heard a little voice say, "Eat beach."
After her initial happiness and pride at swallowing a handful of sand, she soon decided she wanted nothing more to do with the beach so we packed our belongings and headed for home.
We all agreed that this was the nicest day we've had in a long time. We plan to come back next week.
Thanks for stopping by. Have a beautiful, restful weekend!
