Rocking the River

Just as deftly as production artist Rachel crafts intricate cards on a daily basis here at Luscious Verde, she skillfully led a group of us through the Chagrin River in the Cleveland Metroparks' South Chagrin Reservation this past Sunday evening. I told her she missed her calling as a wilderness guide.

We donned shorts, bug spray, and water shoes and packed coolers full of chicken, burgers, zucchini, pineapple, hot dogs, and several vegan options to grill. With the food safely packed away in our cars, we waded into the river to embark on our journey to Squaw Rock.

Squaw Rock is an outdoor sculpture – the result of artist and blacksmith Henry Church’s depiction of the oppression of Native Americans. In 1885 in the looming sandstone he carved a quiver of arrows (with the four phases of the moon), a serpent, a woman with a shell behind her, a dog, a skeleton, and a baby in a papoose.

After trekking past the rock and over several small waterfalls, we made our way back to cook dinner together and explode things (we had a lot of extra 2-liter bottles of pop).

Jesse, our assistant to the plant manager, provided the liquid refreshments, and he got pretty creative. Don’t ask us about the milk-and-fruit-punch shooters or shotgunning blue raspberry Little Hugs. We’re still recovering.

-- Alicia @ L.V.