Our friends are from Michigan, and drove down to meet us at Hocking Hills State Park for 3 days.
Paul and I had actually driven at such a pace that we got there two days early, and did some hiking on our own before the others arrived.
In addition to a brand new visitor center, the park is home to lots of trails that lead to such things as Old Man Cave- the most popular, and therefore, most crowded trail.
Hocking Hills is known for it's deep gorges and waterfalls.
Note to self- I am sure the waterfalls are more spectacular in the spring- but they were still pretty.
I really did enjoy all the tunnels, bridges, and interesting walkways that took us down and around the gorge.
All of the waterfalls had names like Upper Falls, Lower Falls, and Cedar Falls, but they all looked like "Garden Hose Falls" to us. Not much water at all.
We drove to one of the gorges, and it was really pretty neat and worth the drive-
Our final outing was to Rock House Trail, where, after a relatively short hike, we arrived at -the Rock House.
Rock House is the only actual cave in the park. Its a very cool, and unusual looking structure, created by many years of erosion.
Once it was time to say goodbye to our friends, we made a beeline for El Paso. Of course, a beeline still took us a while but we were moving at a pretty good clip.
As we passed through state after state, I realized that in some way, we had come full circle.
17 years ago Paul and I drove from El Paso to Boston- in 4 days. We drove right past things I had never seen- the Mississippi River, Nashville, Memphis and New Orleans- without slowing down. I said then that I wanted to do that trip someday, but take a month to do it.I thought it was a pipe dream.
Fast forward to 2009. When the opportunity presented itself, we sold the house, and spent a leisurely 8 years meandering around the country in a 5th wheel, stopping to look at anything and everything that caught our interest- including Nashville, New Orleans, Memphis, and the Mississippi River.
Today we have circled back to the beginning- driving from Boston to El Paso- in 8 days. We planned our route to avoid as many cities as possible- including Nashville, Memphis and New Orleans.
Struck me as quite funny!
Paul's mom is doing quite well so we only stayed a couple of days before heading home, and even though I asked Paul to remind me- I STILL forgot to take a picture while we were with her!
Next time!!
