You know its a great adventure when the cops show up

 A friend and I went camping this week in an attempt to catch the meteor shower, and we had two of our kids along. Camping is usually an adventure, though this was the first time in two years I have been camping. I loaded up my hybrid, and after a quick meet at Walmart to split a bag of ice, we began the 2+ hour drive to Hocking Hills.

I was happy with the drive, averaging 50 mpg with the car loaded. But the real err of adventure began as I came out of the roundabout near Logan, Ohio. My cell service went dead. I had the route already in the phone's memory, but I was cut off from civilization. I got to the State Park just a few minutes after my friend, and we soon began to get set up. Having chosen an electric site in case we needed to charge devices, we setup on opposite sides of the parking space, with a canopy put up between the cars. My friend promptly set up a pedestal fan using the electric, while the kids just played on the Nintendo switch my friend's son brought along. (I brought a battery-powered fan, so it's all fair...)

We left the kids and scoped out the John Glenn Astronomy park where we saw signs about needing passes, though we missed seeing that online before the trip. (And no cell service there...) but it was daytime and deserted. 

"10" Ten what?

We headed back into town (and cell service) and grabbed Taco Bell for Taco Tuesday, and returned to camp. With still some time to kill, we hiked down to Rose Lake in the park.

Maybe the view was better further down the trail...

We got back to camp as it got dark, and headed back to John Glenn, where we were turned away for not having a parking pass. We were annoyed since neither of us had seen anything about passes online, and we headed back towards the camp. Well, we turned a bit too early, and ended up in the parking lot for Old Man's Cave. Being empty and dark, we decide to watch from there. Camera out, blanket for the kids to sit on, and we started taking pictures.

I don't think I have ever seen so many stars.

For me, it was the first time I ever really got to see the Milky Way. I've seen pictures, but I always thought they were doctored or something. To actually see it though...  We were there a few minutes when a guy with a telescope showed up, and it was a fun impromptu thing.

After about two hours, the cops showed up. Well, a Park Ranger, but he had red and blue lights and was using them. We had missed a sign about the parking lot being closed at night, so we got kicked out of the parking lot. We got some pictures and saw some meteors, so mission accomplished I guess.

We made another attempt to get into John Glenn, and were successful this time. Comparatively, the view sucked. We hung out a few minutes and went back to camp.

We were up sort of early and began to break camp. We were there primarily for astronomy, and I feel like I missed a lot there. I'll have to head back for a few more days next time, there is a lot more there to see.

Like this thing that crawled onto my shirt.

Vintage: Qualified for Half Fanatics

Edited from one of my previous blogs... Edited August 2020, originally posted June 2016

Recovering from the Achilles injury sucks. On National Running day last week, I tried running at the track while my kids had track club, and it was a horrible failure. I couldn't do it. I just need more time. Time was something I didn't have, as I was only 4 days out from my next half marathon, the second of two that I would need to qualify for Half Fanatics.

The weekend got off to a cluster of a start. Friday afternoon my wife left for Cincy to prepare to pace the Race 13.1 Cincinnati half marathon, which was Saturday morning. Lacking a car, and the kids lacking the motivation to put down their video games, I made ramen and tea. I then proceeded to sit down to eat, spilling the tea onto my leg, burning myself just below the hip.

The sounds I made scared the kids a bit, and I got out of my shorts really quickly. I'm sure it could have been worse, so there is that. Also, my mutant superpower is that I shrug off most burns. My wife was always concerned about me because I just tend to get sunburns, and then I act like I don't have a sunburn. I need to actually blister from a sunburn before I really even notice it because it really doesn't cause me pain. This burn is one I can hardly feel, but I felt it a bit during the race, though it was distant. 

My wife came home after pacing and we packed for the Sunday race. As I mentioned before, this would qualify me for Half Fanatics, though for my wife, it would 'moon' her up a few planets for doing two half marathons back to back. So, we left just after 5 pm for the wastelands of northwest Ohio, as the storms rolled in.

We had decided to leave on Saturday instead of Sunday for the race, because the GPS suggested it would be a 2-hour drive, and neither of us wanted to leave at 3 AM. On the plus side, the car's GPS pointed out it was a 3-hour drive instead and that would have cost us the race. As it was, there really weren't a lot of hotel options in the area of Bryan, so we packed up the camping gear, and aimed for Harrison Lake State Park. As we pulled into a gas station just outside Defiance, due to rain too hard to see through, we really questioned the sanity of camping. 

The rain let up, and we got to the campground about 7:30 or so, and being tired of driving, I got an electric campsite. The tent isn't electric compatible, but I wasn't driving around the lake to the non-electric side. If we were staying longer, the extra $6 would have been really worth it, but our portable phone chargers did their jobs quite well.

My wife watched me set the tent up from the car, while I worked in the rain. I think she really thought I would have just given up and gotten a hotel room, but those were starting out at $125+, if I could even find a room, and the campsite was $25. We unloaded the car, and made a quick drive to Burger King. Really, for the region around the Park, the options were local places, and Burger King. For the night before a race, Burger King was the better choice, which is really sad. If not for the race, or if we were staying an extra night, local places would have been great.

I actually got a decent night's sleep, though forcing myself to go to sleep earlier than normal wasn't easy. The last two times I camped, there was a party going on until midnight, so the quiet was nice and strange at the same time. We could hear people in the park, though the noise level was much better than many hotels we have stayed in, especially one rather nice place near Columbus that had a very noisy toilet in the room above us. The double sleeping bag worked great (for me) and my pad under the sleeping bag held up sort of well, as long as I was on my back. (Sleeping on the burn wasn't really an option anyway.) My wife, however, did not like the hard ground, even with the pad under her. Next time, she is demanding an air mattress. (Which sure as beats "never again") She also didn't think to unzip the bag a little for ventilation, but one learns as they go.

We headed over to the race site for the Mainly Marathons Heartland Series day 1 race, and got set up. We were originally signed up for the full, but there was no way I could have done a full that day. With the half two weeks ago put on by my son's scout troop, and the potential for HF qualification, it was a reasonable downgrade.

The course was an out and back, repeated 8 times for the half. This was rather mind-numbing, but you saw the same people a lot.

Like the (in)famous Larry, whom I
encountered once before at the Flying Pig

My wife ran with me for the first 7 laps, and the first 2 were decent. Then, something went awry. I was fighting dizziness, the Achilles pain, one of my knees began to hurt, and a blister formed on both of my feet. The remains of my blister from the previous HM got its own blister. I really had hoped to push for another PR, but ultimately got my worst finish ever for a HM.

My wife told me later that she was really concerned about me because while I had slowed down, I wasn't complaining and whining, which was strange enough that she became concerned about my health. Still, I carried on and finished. It wasn't a good time for me, about 30-40 minutes slower than the Half I ran two weeks ago. I got my medal piece, synced the run to Strava, and put together my medal.

At least I didn't need pliers to assemble it.

We headed back to the camp, where we relaxed a bit, changed clothes, packed up the car, and came home. We ended up on Ohio 66 rather quickly, which was laughed about as the GPS tried to trick us onto the Toll road. I had one dollar in cash and I refused to use it for a toll road. Also, even though we were two and a half hours from home, it just so happens that Ohio 66 ends behind the running store, one mile from our house. I really didn't care if I took it all the way home. We did eventually end up on I-75 though, which was a bit easier than going through a bunch of tiny towns that only had Subways. Seriously, tiny towns in that area all had Subways, and McDonalds were really rare. It was strange.

At any rate, I'm glad to be home. I am not looking forward to actually climbing the stairs to bed, but at least I know I will sleep well tonight.