Surprised by Lions

What a toddler and a morning trail taught me about wonder

My granddaughter is always looking for lions.

We were hiking a trail at Medoc Mountain State Park, a favorite family day trip, and my granddaughter’s first visit. Five minutes into the walk, I told her that if she stayed quiet, we might see animals.

For a two-year-old, that is a nearly impossible assignment. She shuffled her sneakers through the leaves, asked questions at full volume while clinging to my hand. Up ahead on the trail, my husband crouched down by an oak tree and pointed into the leaves.

“Pop found an animal.”

Ellie’s face lit up as she ran to see what it was.

“I wonder if it’s a lion.”

It was not a lion. It was a toad.

A perfectly respectable toad, mind you, but not exactly the sort of thing that inspires safaris and storybooks. Ellie was still delighted, squealing as it hopped away from her outstretched hand.

A week later, I was hiking in Ohio and realized that Ellie understands something about wonder that I forgot probably somewhere around the time my frontal lobe fully developed.

It only took me about four hours at Cuyahoga Valley National Park to be thoroughly over it. The Ohio Turnpike soared over parts of the park on massive overpasses. The hum of traffic was constant. Abandoned canals cut through the landscape and the crumbling, moss-covered locks that went with them. It was also miserably hot.

I saw human scars everywhere.

I spent most of the first day wondering how this place had earned a spot on the national park list. I was seriously considering lodging a complaint.

Before heading back to North Carolina the next morning, my husband and I decided to hike the Ledges Trail. I wanted to get some steps in before the long truck ride home. I wasn’t expecting much, but what I found caught me completely off guard.

It took a little more than a quarter mile through the woods to reach The Ledges, massive formations of sandstone and conglomerate rock, carved and weathered over roughly 250 million years.

It was early morning, and we had the trail mostly to ourselves. This part of the park is quiet in a way that the rest just isn’t. Once you step inside the trees, it feels like someone has closed a door. The air was cooler, especially as we approached the rocks.

In the morning light, it was stunning. With mist just floating over the carved stones. The beams of golden sun cut through the tree branches like light through stained glass. Moss clung to the edges in deep greens, and roots threaded through the stone like they had been since the beginning of time.

It took my breath away.

We moved slower without really deciding to. Our voices dropped to whispers, partly to avoid breaking the magic and partly because the place demanded a level of reverence typically reserved for holy places.

This was not the Cuyahoga Valley National Park from the day before. I went in expecting a toad.

This time, I found a lion.