Some One-and-a-Half Tank Trips

As we all know, any further major travel is out for 2020. Lady Adventurer and I are planning a medium-length road trip later on, but plans for that are still being finalized. In the meantime, we're doing some shorter one and two-night road trips, in which we don't venture too very far from home. We want to explore a bit, but we mostly want to stay safe. Here is the tale(e) of some of those short Summer 2020 trips.


Geneva

We love Geneva. Went for a long hike in Geneva State Park, then hit some wineries. These are Ohio's best, and this time we hit some familiar ones (Harpersfield, M Cellars) and one new one: Laurentia. It was as good as the rest. On the way home the next morning, we drove along the lake, stopping at some parks and enjoying the scenery. One place where we spent some time is Euclid Beach. We hadn't been there since we were kids.

Euclid Beach

Euclid Beach

Euclid Beach

Geneva St. Park

Headlands

Sandusky

With Cedar Point and the water parks closed, Sandusky was a ghost town. That actually made it a nice place to visit. After stopping at Marblehead, we visited a couple wineries, including Gideon Owen, formerly Mon Ami, for lunch. Once again, we drove home along the lake the next morning. One park we stopped at is Lakeview Beach in Lorain. It was quite impressive, and we vowed to return.

Lakeview Beach

Lakeview Beach

Hocking Hills

Four hikes in two days. And some of them were fairly difficult. Conkles Hollow was one we hadn't done in the past. It was the best hike - maybe in the whole state. The others were more familiar, but they were nice as well: Rock House, Ash Cave, and Cantwell Cliffs. Cantwell was very difficult, and we'd done it recently, so we cut that one short.

Conkles Hollow

Ash Cave

Ash Cave

Cantwell Cliffs

Erie

Now we're getting adventurous: two nights away from home, rather than one like the previous trips. We like Erie, especially wonderful Presque Isle State Park: the marvelous peninsula jutting out into Lake Erie.

On the way up, we stopped to hike at Erie Bluffs State Park. It's on the lake, just past the Ohio Border. Nice views, but surprisingly steep hills for the hike. We also hiked at Scott Park in Erie, and did several shorter walks at Presque Isle. Did some major relaxing on the beach there as well.

The other activity for this trip was winery visitation. We went to several, and the wines have certainly improved since the last time we did this about a decade ago. The Geneva, Ohio area wines still seem better, however.

Erie Bluffs St. Park

Presque Isle

Presque Isle

Presque Isle

Breakfast picnic on the beach at Presque Isle

Conneaut on the way home

2018 Hocking Hills

This is our third of three mini/weekend trips for the summer. This time, Lady Adventurer and I traveled with daughter and son-in-law Veronica and Barry Dancer, and of course their kids, Malcolm and Vincent. Just like last year, we stayed in a cabin in the Hocking Hills area of southern Ohio.

It was a beautiful cabin called, 'Outside Inn.' The kids loved it, and we celebrated Malcolm's eighth birthday. Mostly, we went for the hiking and the sights. For hiking, there was:

Clear Creek Metropark: Lady A and I arrived early, so we hiked the Fern trail there. It was more difficult than anticipated, but a nice walk in the woods.

Hiking Clear Creek

Hiking Clear Creek

Cantwell Cliffs: This was a fairly spectacular hike in and around some steep rock cliffs, which included two amphitheater formations, complete with waterfalls. The hiking was extremely difficult, but everyone, including the kidlets did fine.

Cantwell Cliffs Hike

Cantwell Cliffs Hike

Cantwell Cliffs Hike

Rockbridge: This park was also close to our cabin. Veronica, Debbie and I were the only ones to brave the two-mile trail. The rock bridge itself was pretty cool. Yes, you could walk above it, but although we could go nearby, we weren't able to walk completely underneath.

Rockbridge

Rockbridge

The campfire was a highlight, as always.

We had hoped to see some stars, and possibly even experience the new John Glenn Astronomy park, but it rained Friday night, and it was cloudy most of the remaining time. It finally became clear as we were getting ready to go. Debbie saw a shooting star!

2018 Wild Wonderful West Virginia

This is the second of three mini-vacations for the year. The primary reason for this one? Hiking!

We had to plan around the expected rain and thunderstorms, and for once, it worked out. We drove straight down to Canaan Valley State Park, encountering awful traffic on the way, and did that hike first. We stayed closer to our home base of Morgantown on Saturday, the second day. That second bit of hiking was in nearby Coopers Rock State Forest. Here's the rundown. Or walkdown, if you will.

We stumbled out of the car after that awful five and a half hour drive through terrible traffic. Got right on the ski-lift and rode to the top of the mountain. Our two and a half mile hike would be back down to the car via the Bald Knob Trail.

Chair Lift

When we emerged from the chairlift, I thought we'd be at the top of Bald Knob. But although we were high up - it had been a long ride - we had to hike further to get to 'the knob.'

Hiking to Bald Knob

Hiking up to Bald Knob

On the Bald Knob trail

It turned out to be about halfway 'down' the trail, and that first part wasn't bad at all. The second half was. It was a steep, knee-buckling and quad-killing hike. Yet it was spectacular at the mountain-top lookouts, as well as all the way down. Even though our legs, and Lady Adventurer's feet, were killing us, we absolutely loved this hike.

Dinner at the Canaan Valley Park Lodge was tasty, and a nice treat for our hard work.

Saturday would be our easy day, I said. I think that I lost some credibility with the Lady Adventurer and Hiker Extraordinaire after about five miles on the trails. But like Canaan Valley, Coopers Rock park was spectacularly scenic. We hiked the Raven's Rock Trail (there was a great lookout), the Rock City Trail (this is a lot like our ledges trail), and also a few shorter ones.

Ravens Rock

Ravens Rock

The woods were great, and the lookouts on the Cheat River Gorge were, well, gorgeous.

We loved this little hiking trip. We will be back.

Also, see my running blog post about this trip.