Ohio and then blitzing across the U.S.A (09-23-19)

One of our "bookends" (a reservation or obligation that requires us to be in a certain place, on a certain date) was a meet up with some friends in Ohio in mid September.



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!!

First Stop- Geneva State Park, OH

Ok Kirk, this is for you... Our first stop on the way from MI to Boston is a small state park in OH, on Lake Erie. The trip here was uneventful, which was great, for our first day out. We did stop at Cabelas to get me hiking boots, with no success. We'll have to wait till we get to an REI somewhere. This is a small park, nice, I guess, for a vacation with kids. There is a free beach, which I was desperate to get to....I haven't been out in the sun all summer, and this is the palest I have ever looked. When we got here yesterday we took a long-3 mile walk around to see the water, marina, etc. We wanted to go hiking but found out there really isn't much hiking around here. we did walk through the woods, sort of like hiking ( more like a conditioning walk, I guess) for a few miles this morning. The closest thing we saw to wildlife were deer tracks. Seriously, no birds, no squirrels, nothing. Its been pretty hot out there the last few days- low 90s. we came back for lunch, then hit the beach for an hour or so...we would have loved to take the dinghy out, but it isn't worth it for one afternoon. tonight we need to make some plans for where we will stay after Allegheny Natl Forest. We have a couple of free days before we meet up with Stephen (Yay!!) in MA. We have also been trying to decide what to do at Christmas time...we originally were planning on spending a whole month in San Diego, but Jess says she would like to head up the coast to see Paul's friends with us, so now we may plan to do that while she is with us... Tomorrow its off to Allegheny National Forest in PA.