Our Annual Birthday Trip!

The first year we were married, we decided to start a tradition of taking a small trip every year somewhere in the vicinity of our birthdays (which are only three weeks apart).

* The first year we went to the Creation Museum.

* The second year we went to the Tulip Time Festival in Holland, Michigan (but there were no tulips that year because the Polar Vortex had delayed their blooming). It was so cold, but we had fun!

* The third year we went to Gatlinburg, hoping for warmer temps than year two. (And we succeeded!)

* The fourth year we combined work with pleasure and visited some friends in Chilton, Wisconsin (near Green Bay) while I spoke at a women's conference. Ryan had a miserable cold, and it snowed in Wisconsin.

* The fifth year we went to Saugatuck, Michigan and stayed at a BOAT and breakfast while simultaneously freezing - again. 

* The sixth year we went to Madison, Indiana, which is a little tourist town on the Ohio River.

* The seventh year was last year, and we went on a Caribbean Cruise because it was Ryan's 40th!

This year we planned our trip back in January, before everything fell apart. We decided to delay the trip to late May in hopes of great weather and go someplace we have wanted to go all eight years of our marriage: Hocking Hills State Park in Logan, Ohio. We did research, we booked our (literally) little Airbnb tiny cabin, and waited for May.

And then the pandemic came. Everything shut down, and we had no idea if we could go. Or should go. We decided not to cancel our reservations and just wait to see what happened. We watched the rules in Ohio as closely as we watched the ones in our state. 

We decided to go, and I won't lie: I am sweating even writing about it to you, because I know here in the land of the internet, people tend to speak very freely about their opinions on people's choices. I read an Instagram post while we were gone that showed one of the Bates girls in a (privately owned) plane with her husband and baby girl on the way to some sort of vacation, and the comment thread was so hateful!

So today and in the days to come, I'm planning to share our birthday trip with you, and I want to be clear from the start that we did everything we could do to be safe, smart, and cautious. We stayed alone in an Airbnb (that may go down in history as the cleanest place we have EVER stayed). We were in a remote area. We took all our own food so we wouldn't have to eat out, and part of that decision was driven by not knowing if anyplace would even be open to go eat if we wanted to. We did end up stopping in a couple of very small local establishments. In one, we ate outside way off in a corner by ourselves. In another, there was only one other person inside, and we sat as far from her as we could. We had our masks with us the entire time, and the few times we were in areas where we came "close" to others (which really wasn't even close) we put them on. We carried hand sanitizer in our pockets and used it often. Our only plan for the entire time was to hike, and we kept our distance from people on the trails. We actually didn't see a ton of people on the trails, which was amazing, considering a little detail I'll share in a moment. 

It's okay if you don't agree with our decision to go. It's okay if you would have stayed home. But I can truly say that of any trip we have ever taken, this was the most secluded and isolated experience we have ever taken, both by the very nature of where we went and by our additional design. 

And we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

Here's the craziest part of the adventure. We planned this entire trip to spend three full days hiking as much of Hocking Hills State Park as we could manage. And the entire state park is closed. Still.

We didn't fully realize this fact until we were IN our cabin. I think we were thrown off by the fact that in our Indiana brains, the phrase "Hocking Hills" referred to "Hocking Hills State Park," and the website said SOME trails were closed but SOME were open. Once we arrived, we realized that in local terminology, "Hocking Hills" refers to an entire AREA that contains not only the state park with the same name, but many other parks, too. All of Hocking Hills State park was 100% closed for business. Other parks were open. And one gentleman we saw near the entrance of one of the parks told us that the traffic to those parks had risen to insane levels, because everyone was forced to cram into the little parks in the absence of the big park.

That made us a bit nervous, but like I said earlier, we really didn't see too many people on the trails! We saw TONS of cars in every parking lot, but there must have been enough space inside the parks, because it didn't feel crowded in any of them.

Side note: we did see many signs for people to sign a petition to reopen the big park. I can only imagine that it being closed here in the summer months is a big hit for the tourism economy!

So! With all that said, here is a quick look at our how our vacation began. We left home Thursday morning, in POURING rain.

We stopped  just north of Indianapolis to get our lunch - at Chick-fil-A! We had a gift card, and we planned to eat on the road (since the dining room is still closed). When we got in line, we were not even close to the parking lot. We were backed up down the road a bit. We only dared to get in that long of a line because - hello! - it's Chick-fil-A! We knew it would be quick. And it was! From down the road to food in hand in 27 minutes flat.

By the time we reached the Ohio state line...we saw blue skies!

I'm going to show you our cute cabin tomorrow, but I'll show you our first evening - which we spent entirely at the cabin. We arrived, did our self-check-in process, and unpacked our car.

Like I said, we had taken our food with us, so on Thursday evening, Ryan grilled steaks. They were SO GOOD. We ate out on our little patio at the cutest little bistro table.

We had our coffee out there, too!

We may have had a little hot tub on our porch too...

And some more coffee - on the front porch rockers!

It was a great start to a Plan B, C, D, E, F...kind of trip!