Brady's Leap Turnpike Rest Stop - Eastbound Traditional Geocache

Just a quick micro ‘cache-n-dash’ for all of you Geocachers driving across our fair state. Of course, the local NEOGEO cachers are welcome too! No toll money required if you can find the back way in.

This is a good spot to slow down and take a pit stop. Just east of here is the local State Highway Patrol barracks. They love stopping you out of staters speeding through here!

Welcome to one of Ohio’s newer travel plazas. This one is called Brady’s Leap. Named so after a local historical hero. Here's the history info about him:

Captain Samuel Brady was a noted Ohio Indian fighter who had many hairbreadth escapes. The most celebrated took place about 1780 near Kent in Portage County, Ohio, where Brady's men, in a skirmish, were outnumbered four to one.

The Captain finally ordered his men to split up and run! He told each to take care of himself. The Indians responded by deciding to zero in on Brady since he, with his courageous leadership over the years, had become their most dangerous adversary. They pursued Brady alone until they reached an upstream part of the Cuyahoga River that was confined to a narrow chasm, 22 feet from one bank to the other.

There, Brady, blessed with exceptional athletic ability, jumped the gap in a single bound. This temporarily stymied his awestruck pursuers who were unable to duplicate the white man's remarkable feat.

Though they fired their rifles across the stream and wounded him in the hip, Brady managed to reach a nearby pond before the warriors again closed in. He plunged into the pond, swam underwater a considerable distance and came up under the floating hollow trunk of a fallen oak tree. There he hid until the Indians, thinking he had probably drowned, departed.

Later Brady returned to safety -- bleeding and barely able to stand, but still very much alive. The pond eventually became known as "Brady's Lake," and the chasm, "Brady's Leap."

Cool, huh?

Enjoy! Cache on! Have a safe trip! Dan the Hiking Viking.

This is the hiking viking's 29th cache in the greater Akron area.