2 Parks today, and a side dish off the bucket list.

I loaded up on my pain meds and decided to make a try for the Cleveland parks that I had missed twice before.  Had a decent success.

Left Berlin at 8, dropped Bette off at Aunt Skips at 9, and headed to Cleveland by 915.  I forgot Bette had made me change the GPS to shortest routing, so I took every stupid back road in the world up to the first stop, Mentor Ohio in the northern Cleveland suburbs. 

The 159th park was the James Garfield NHS-  This was originally the President's homestead of about 180 or so acres, today, it is down to a sliver of about 8 acres or so.  The main house survives, and a nice Visitor's Center.  I watched an 18 minute movie, but was pressed for time, so I didn't get to take the house tour.  Next time. 

From there, about 15 miles or so down the road to an item that had been on my personal bucket list to visit, and I got that done today.

The David Berger National Memorial is located on the grounds of the Mandel Jewish Center in Beachwood, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland.
David Berger was one of the 11 athletes killed in the 1972 Munich Olympics.  He was born in the United States, but moved to Israel to follow his dream of competing in weight lifting.

He was taken hostage by Arab men, and was among the 9 athletes taken hostage and killed in a botched rescue attempt by the German police.  There were 2 others killed at the Munich complex. 

The memorial depicts the Olympic rings broken in half, and sits on a base of 11 segments, representing those who were killed.  It was a moving moment, thinking back on that day, remembering like I'm sure many others do, the riveting reporting of Jim McKay as he told us the events of the day. 

While I was at the Berger, I spoke with a gentleman who gave me a heads up about my next planned stop, the Cuyahoga Valley National Park- in that he mentioned that there were very few of the visitor centers open on Tuesday, and he was right.  So I wound up visiting the Boston Store VC, and a stamping location across the street, and another store that had a stamp over at the Railroad Station.  The other locations were closed!   Not to worry, counts as a visit-  park number 160!  

For sure have to bring Cooper back here next visit to Ohio, so we can ride the train, and get our additional stamps. 

Got three pins for the day, a couple of postcards, so Cooper, watch the mail!

When we got back to Berlin, about 4, Dan and Kippy had arrived and were finishing setting up-  They will be here for 3 weeks.  We're headed out to dinner somewhere tonight and will play tomorrow-  Still feeling a tad rough with the abcess, have to tough it out.  Hope I at least get some sleep tonight- haven't slept but about 2-3 hours a night for the last 2 nights due to the pain.....