Huron & the Firelands Coast — Boat Basin, Estuary Marshes & Migratory Birds

A quiet day on the western Lake Erie shore, in the old Firelands country settled by Connecticut families burned out of their homes during the Revolution. This is a trip built for slowness and water: the morning walks the Huron boat basin and its long pier out into the lake, the midday drops into the Old Woman Creek National Estuarine Research Reserve — one of the few remaining natural estuaries on the Great Lakes — and the afternoon threads the boardwalks of the Sheldon Marsh State Nature Preserve, a birding hotspot where warblers, herons, and waterfowl stage on their migrations. There are no hills to climb and nothing to rush; the pace is set by the tide of the marsh and the light off the lake. Bring binoculars and let the shorebirds set the schedule.