Fairport Harbor Lighthouse

Wednesday we visited the Fairport Harbor Marine Museum and Lighthouse (and accomplished one of the items on my Cleveland area to-do list!). It's a great little museum with a whole variety of artifacts on the local area. One of the big draws is the story of the ghost cat that is said to haunt the Keeper's house.

This is an 'official' photo of the lighthouse and museum (in red, the Keeper's house) taken down the hill (between the harbor and the site).

Accompanying us on our adventure were Gram, my sister-in-law and nephews. The highlight of the visit was the climb to the top of lighthouse. 

Gram, Ethan and Chrissy at the top!

The pretty but scary stairs to the top. There's only a railing on the wall side and the spiral is really tight. T and I made two attempts. One the first one, an older man ahead of us had to turn around so we went back to the bottom (there's not much passing room and I was feeling a little scared, I'll admit it!). On our second try, we made it past the 50th step (less than 20 to go), when Thomas said it was time to retreat. Not sure if he was worn out or claustrophic or afraid, but going down is much harder than going up! 

We were proud of Elliot because he didn't want to go up at all, but after an initial attempt that didn't succeed, he tried again and made it all the way up! To his left, above, you can see the "door" to the outside, which is actually a hole in the wall that you have to crawl out of to get outside!

We met for lunch at Fairport Family Restaurant, just across the street from the lighthouse, and would recommend it for an inexpensive meal - everything is made from scratch and was delicious! Service was great too.