Heading for my wife's family cabin in northeast Ohio today, we decided on a northern route to avoid urban congestion. When we reached Ft. Wayne, Indiana, we were in the uppermost watershed of the Wabash River and soon dropped across the vast Lake Plain of northern Ohio, flattened by Pleistocene glaciers and later covered by vast meltwater lakes.
Lake Maumee covered the northwest corner of Ohio and initially spilled to the west, sculpting the Wabash River Valley (see The Maumee Torrent). The Lake Plain from Toledo to Cleveland was covered by glacial Lake Warren, the larger predecessor of Lake Erie. Driving eastward across the Plain, we crossed numerous rivers, large and small, all draining toward Lake Erie; indeed, as we left the Wabash River watershed and entered the Lake Plain, we had crossed the Eastern Continental Divide.
As we neared Cleveland on the Ohio Turnpike, a massive ridge of thunderstorms loomed across the eastern horizon. Adorned with a rainbow, it seemed to promise milder air during our week on the Appalachian Plateau.
