Hocking Hills - Part 1

Pastor's Log - Sabbatical Date: 2-2-12  - 22:34
(A recap of our week at Hocking Hills)

Monday morning, I took the van first thing to the garage to see if we could get the electrical connection to the camper resolved.  The van alone wasn't enough, however.  They needed me to come back and bring the camper too.  I headed home to finish packing and to run some errands.  Then on our way out of town, we stopped back by the garage.  After a couple of hours and some rewiring of our friends camper (not how I would have preferred to fix the problem), they got it working and we were on our way.  We arrived at the camp ground a little after 5 and set up.  Elam and I went for firewood. 

That night, we left our water cooler out which shouldn't have been a problem except for the fact that it wasn't filled with water.  We had packed our bread in the cooler to keep it from being crushed in transport.  We forgot to remove it and place it in the van during our unpacking.  We woke up to hearing a raccoon stealing a loaf of our bread.

Tuesday morning we got up, had breakfast and got ready.  Then we went for a hike in Conkle's Hollow.  I was wearing my MCC SWAP shirt that day and some people asked me when I had served with SWAP.  They used to live in the area, but were now in Ohio and attending Oak Grove Mennonite, Smithville.  It's funny the connections that a T-shirt can make.  The hike was supposed to take us to a waterfall, but when we got to the end of the trail, there was a small pool of water but no falling water.  I guess that it had been too dry.  We ate our lunch and then went swimming that afternoon.

Wednesday morning we got ready and went hiking at Old Man's Cave and then down to the lower falls, though once again, there was a pool of water but no falling water.  The trail to the falls had an insane amount of steps to go up and down.  We ate our lunch at a picnic area by the parking lot and then drove to get ice cream at a store with 24 flavors of soft serve.  We had our afternoon pool time followed by "Hobbo meals" cooked on the coals and S'mores.  That evening, Elam and I went fishing.

Thursday we got ready and went for a hike at Ash Cave which was awesome to see.  We chose it in part because the trail is handicap accessible, so we could take the stroller; but I had forgotten the size of it.  We had lunch there in a picnic area near the parking lot.  When we got back to the camp grounds, we had our pool time for the day.  For supper, we had pie iron pizzas.  We then drove to another part of the campgrounds and let the kids play on a larger play ground.   As the sun set, we headed back to our campsite to settle in for the evening.