Starting Out in Slow Motion

 

The clothes are tumbling in the dryer, my hair is still in a fat braid from the last day of hiking, and I’m once again on my beloved couch, which I haven’t seen in four days. Such is the push and pull of returning home from vacation. There is great sadness, because no matter how long it goes, vacation is never long enough. There is great joy, because no matter how short it’s been, nothing beats your own couch and the view out your living room window.

                Ryan and I just wrapped up our thirteenth annual birthday trip. In those thirteen years, we’ve visited…Kentucky, Michigan, Tennessee, Wisconsin, Indiana, the Caribbean, Ohio, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, North Carolina, and West Virginia. Some of those states we’ve visited more than once. But we’ve never returned to the same destination twice, until this year.

                You see, five years ago, we scheduled a birthday trip to Hocking Hills (Ohio) and had no idea until we arrived and unpacked that the entire state park was closed for the pandemic. There we sat, in the cutest tiny cabin we’d ever seen, and though the mantra of the pandemic was “go outside!” – we apparently couldn’t go to that outside. We were so fortunate to find hiking trails outside the park we intended to visit, so we had a fun trip and made memories, but the one memory we didn’t get to make was seeing Hocking Hills State Park. This year – we went back. And oh, my goodness, it did not disappoint!

                The hardest part about vacation this year was getting to it. The entire last week before we left felt like slogging through mud. Every single thing in our personal and professional lives seemed to be a trap, and we weren’t sure we were going to leave home at all.

                We didn’t go to bed until 1:00 in the morning the night before we left, because we hadn’t even had a chance to think about packing until almost 11 p.m. That has never ever happened before. And then we were up early the day we left trying to get everything fit in. The stories we could tell you about that morning alone would blow your mind. But we’re going to skip over those to get to the fun stuff.

                Another thing that has never ever happened before? Leaving late. We left almost three hours past the time we planned to go, and I don’t know that I fully relaxed or recovered from that until we arrived back home. We had a whole lot to pack into a short amount of time, so while missing out on three hours might not seem like much, it actually made a huge difference, and not in a good way.

                Because we were so late getting started, our first order of business was to find some lunch, and I had zero plans that fit the area we were in when lunchtime rolled around. We ended up stopping by the Warm Glow Candle Company in Centerville, Indiana, to eat in their café. (We went to this store back on our 9^th anniversary trip, when we did the Wayne County Chocolate Trail. It was a stop on the trail, and we received free chocolate-scented candles there!)

                Even though we were there right at lunch time, it was pretty empty, so we enjoyed a nice, private date! Ryan got a brisket sandwich and said it was the best one he’d ever had. I had a Mediterranean wrap, and it was delish!

                The actual plan I had for that area was to stop at Auntie Em’s pie and coffee for a pie date. (Ryan’s favorite!) We still went, and I got the Cold Brew pie, which I’d never even heard of before. It was on a chocolate crumb crust and tasted like mocha. It was so good. Ryan had peanut butter pie and gave it two thumbs up. The store itself has no indoor seating, and while there is a table outside the restaurant, on the sidewalk, it’s at a pretty busy intersection, so we took our pie and coffee to a park down the road and enjoyed part two of our date!

                After lunch, we drove on over to Ohio, and we had pretty easy travels. The weather was nice, the traffic was light, we didn’t encounter any construction, accidents, detours, or delays!

                We slid into the State Park about 45 minutes before the Visitor’s Center closed. We went in to get maps, only to find out they no longer distribute paper maps. We could take a screenshot of the online map and use it…because there is zero cell service throughout the park. We did that, but we didn’t find them easy to use while we hiked. We mostly relied on maps scattered throughout the park, and trail markings.

                I had read on a blog that the best times to visit any of the sections of this park are earlier in the day and late in the day. We found that to be 100% true during our visit. Showing up at the end of business? Perfection for a pretty empty trail! We headed down a relatively short trail to Old Man’s Cave, and it was so pretty.

                According to the Hocking Hills website, this trail is the most popular of all the hikes in the park. Here are some of the pictures from our hike.

                It was so humid so my hair was excessively large by the end of the hike. We thought about doing a second trail, but we decided to head to our hotel instead. We checked in, ordered pizza, and headed to pick it up. We discovered a festival underway, so we walked around that area until our pizza was ready, and then we ate back at the hotel!

                We may have started out a bit behind (we had three hikes planned for the first day) but it was still a lot of fun, and it was just so good to be together and away from the norm!