We chose Top o' the Caves for our camping site. http://www.topothecaves.com/ (warning - annoying music plays when you open the website) We made our reservation several weeks ago and asked for a site with trees. Little did we have any idea how much it would rain and that trees wouldn't really matter.
So we left Thursday around 4pm and headed to the Hocking Hills area. It's about a 2 hour drive and it rained most of the way there. We kept praying that the rain would stop long enough for us to put up our tent, otherwise it was going to be a wet night. We checked in at the campground and got out site number - 49. We drove around to find it and realized it was down the hill from the road and therefore, nowhere to park near our site. We drove around looking for a better location and finally decided to go get dinner and wait for the rain to stop.
We found a little restaurant at a lodge and when we walked in, no one else was there. We ordered the neighborhood special ($10 for stir fry) and an appetizer. The food was very good, but a bit pricey. (There wasn't a lot of places to eat around there, so we were surprised at the prices. But I guess that's the law of supply and demand.) The rain let us while we were eating and other campers started coming into the restaurant. We left quickly hoping we'd have enough time to get our tent up.
We got back to the campground and decided to go with the site we were given. It was on a hill, but there were two flat parts - one to put up a tent and the other for a table. Perfect. And we didn't have neighbors the entire weekend. We got the new tent put up, and we completely unloaded the car (since we had to park up the hill). Then the sun came out and we got brave - we decided to have a campfire. Jason did an awesome job chopping up the wood into small pieces in order to get a good fire going (with damp wood).
Sometime around 2am the rain started again. This time it was a thunderstorm with a constant downpour for hours. Then around 4am Jason realized there was water inside our tent. We turned on a light and realized the seam where the floor (tarp material) met the walls was leaking! This was a water-proof tent with specially reinforced seams to prevent leaking - that's how much it rained! We mopped up the moat on the inside of the tent and moved everything away from the walls. In the morning it wasn't as bad and we did more wiping up the water. The trick seemed to be to keep anything from touching the walls and then the leaking wasn't so bad. We decided that we'd try to find a camping store or a Walmart and get the hugest tarp ever and just cover up our tent. We weren't leaving, but we weren't settling for a wet tent.
Knowing that the 4th of July would be a wet and rainy day, we bought train tickets on the Hocking Valley Scenic Railway in Nelsonville. http://www.hvsry.org/
We made breakfast (scrambled eggs and cheese sandwiches in a camping iron) and attempted coffee, but the water never got hot enough (old-style percolator style pot). We headed into Nelsonville and found a Subway for lunch. We made our way to the train station and found our they upgraded our ticket to first class. It was the perfect treat after a very rainy 24 hours! The views were wonderful and we sat around the most interesting people. After about 2 hours we were back at the depot.
We couldn't find anything around Nelsonville, so we headed to Logan. Where do you find a Walmart? We just took the main road through Nelsonville and then made a wrong turn - and we found a Walmart!! We got our tarp and some lighter fluid - hoping it would help with the wet wood problem. We then ran across a BBQ place that we saw in a travel brochure, Millstone BBQ. http://www.millstonebbq.com/ Our server was Amy and she was the best waitress we've ever had. She didn't have many tables, so she had time to chat with us. She's been married 3 years with 2 kids. She and her husband honeymooned in Gatlinburg too. Her husband is from Troy, but somehow they ended up in Nelsonville. (We're thinking she's from there.) We told her about our trip to Honduras and she said she'd be praying for us. We promised we'd be back and let her know how our trip went.
We're definitely writing the restaurant a letter and thanking Amy for the wonderful service. She offered to bring out the two dressings I couldn't decide between for my salad. She heard me say that I'd make my tea sweet, she brought out an ice tea spoon. (I didn't even think restaurants had those anymore.) The food was great, and when we had left overs, she brought out two containers - one for Jason's dinner, and one for the mini-muffins we didn't finish. And then she gave us drinks in to-go containers for the ride back to the campground. After a rainy, damp day, it was so nice to be pampered quite a bit.
We went back to our campsite and saw that a large branch had fallen right next to our tent. There was no damage to our tent, but it was still unnerving that it came that close. We had several people see the branch from the road and stop and make comments. Definitely a close call. That evening Jason got a great fire going again (once again, with wet wood, lots of chopping wood into smaller pieces and this time with lighter fluid). We had smores - right before the rain started again. This time with the tarp over the tent we stayed very dry!
Saturday morning was dry and promised to be just an overcast day. Jason got the fire going and this time we had coffee. Pretty good, with a bit of a smokey taste to it. (As you might expect.) We got on the road and headed to Old Man's Cave. We could not believe the amount of people there. We had our hiking boots on, along with maps and water bottles. We saw so many people walking around with flip flops, complaining about the humidity, and just going everywhere you're not supposed to go. Not at all what we were expecting. We took our time and I took a lot of pictures and savored the moments when we weren't surrounded by people. The water falls and the rock formations were beautiful! The most fascinating thing was all the trees and other vegetation that could grow on top of a rock. (Lots of unusual pictures of trees on top of rocks, and those that had fallen off!)
Afterwards we got lunch and then headed to Rock House, about 10 miles away. This was a much better location. The rock formations were beautiful, and we really enjoyed walking through the cave. I didn't realize how beautiful the colors were inside until I started looking at the pictures I took with flash. It was so dark inside the cave that you couldn't hardly see where you were going. Once again, crazy people going down the side of the cave or walking around the edge of rocks. However, a lot less people made the experience so much better.
We headed back to the campground and while I took a shower, Jason made a delicious dinner of chedderwurst, baked potatoes, and corn on the cob. Later we had smores again, but this time we tried them with Reece's cups instead of Hershey bars (Jason's idea). Very yummy!! We stayed up until all the wood was gone and went to bed exhausted.
The next morning we got up to sunshine! We got the tent taken down and the car completely packed up. We headed to Athens, so I could show Jason around Ohio University. I was an engineering major there from the fall of 1990 until the spring of 1993. After walking around the campus (and not recognizing a few parts), we headed to The Ridges. OU's site is informative - http://www.ohiou.edu/athens/greens/theridges.html, but this site has better pictures - http://www.forgottenoh.com/Ridges/ridges.html. We went inside the art museum part and they showed us a room that had some history about the building. We then drove around and found the old cemetery. Oddly enough, it's part of a nature walk with a very noisy HVAC unit nearby. Not what you imagine with all the pictures you see.
And then we headed home to unpack and clean everything possible. We have to let everything dry out and then refold everything. Fun fun. But that's part of camping, right? :)
Next "camping" trip will be Honduras. We'll be recycling a lot of stuff we used this past weekend. And for the record, we didn't end up not having enough (minus that one tarp), and we didn't pack too much. The secret, the perfect camping list: http://www.lovetheoutdoors.com/camping/Checklists.htm
I know this was long, so thank you for bearing with me and reading this to the bitter end. Now for a few of the 400+ pictures I took....
Our campsite (note the mud everywhere)
Foggy after the rain - with the sun trying to come out.
At the train depot - raining!
The car we should have been on (note open sides)
The 1st class car we ended up in:
Old Man's Cave
Rock House
The Ridges
The cemetery at the Ridges
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