Into the woods

 I decided to try and figure out where the Buckeye Trail heads north of town, as it has been a mystery to me for a while. I have hiked a certain section a few times, but parking is not an option for the far end of the local section, and the maps are not great online. I started at the parking lot closest to the trail in town, and headed towards the wooded area.

It was a nice day out.

The trail goes along Piqua's reservoir dam which has a pleasant view. There is a rock in the man-made lake, and a few lucky people even live around it.

Must be nice to have your own private dock house thing. 

I followed the "blue" blazes towards where I knew the hiking trail would really get going. I have been there a few times and even led a scout troop down the harder part of the trail a few years ago. Still, it was a fair walk to the off road section.

I don't know if I noticed the
North Country trail sign before.

Once I got to the path, into the trees I went, and I got to enjoy some quiet space. There are actually two benches in this area, which is nice, I guess. Maybe one further down would have been better.

You have to know about it I guess.

The first section there is really straight and easy, aside from some strong spider webs. One side had a wire fence along the north side, but it really didn't have a purpose as there were fields on both sides.

Also level!

The trees broke for a cross path between the two fields, though I thought there were more cross paths growing up. I used to camp every year at a festival held at the historic area the trail cuts through and had camped near that very treeline. I don't remember the trail being there. I started into the next section, which is a lot more technical when something bit my leg. I don't know what, and it might have been a spiny plant for all I ever figured out. I went a bit further, knocking out some large spider webs in front of me before the pain in my leg told me continuing was not the best idea. I abandoned completing that section and turned around for the mile hike back to the car. 

I have actually done that section a few times without issue, and it was probably a one-off thing. Without completing it though, I didn't get the opportunity to figure out just where the trail goes from there. 

It was an uneventful hike other than whatever got my leg. It didn't swell up or have any punctures that I could see, and by the next morning, it was back to normal. I might get a hiking pole before I go back though, if for nothing more than breaking the spider webs ahead of me. 

Feeling annoyed about the lack of completing it, I tried to figure out where the path would be from Lockington Dam. Again, the Buckeye Trail maps online were of no help. (I think the website had an issue though. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt there.) I could order the physical maps online for a few bucks, and might eventually do that, but I just happen to be at the boundary between two regions. That means double the maps! I might end up doing that though, but not for now.

I realized though that the one signpost also said North Country National Scenic Trail and I hit up their website. Now that website has some great maps! Sadly though, I found that furthest I have been on the trail is where it goes on roads for a few miles. On the bright side though, it looks like it is a trail again north of Lockington Dam. At least that gives me a fresh starting point for later. 

On to a different challenge

 I decided to look into camping and the state parks a bit more after the trip to Hocking Hills last week and discovered that the state is not selling a State Park passport. In this 45 page book, there are individual pages for all 75 State Parks. 

I guess the greatest question is, of course, we have 88 counties and 75 State Parks. I wonder which counties got the shaft, and... How many pages was that?

45 pages... but 75 individual pages?

Now, I am genuinely confused as to how many pages this is, but hey. There has to be a simple answer, so I went with the easiest answer, I ordered one. 

$13.75 with tax and shipping.

I know it is a Government website, and while the process was not difficult, I had to use the campsite reservation system to order it. I did take an opportunity to look at some of the local park's campsites, and they are a lot more expensive than when I used to go camping in high school. I also found it funny that the email confirmation used the day/month/year format. This is Ohio, it shouldn't do that. 

I got the book in the mail on Thursday, having ordered it Sunday night. I feel like I should have gotten it sooner, but something is off with the USPS at the moment. 

The book had its own journey.

I won't get political over this. The USPS has had some weird things going on for years. Six years ago they closed the Dayton facility and started routing the mail through Columbus. It still tends to be fast. I just don't get why it went from Columbus to Pittsburgh. I've never been to Pittsburgh, and being a different state and the wrong direction on I-70, I don't think the book should have either. It got back to Cincinnati, which is almost as far away as Columbus, and then to Troy. That's the kicker. I have never had a package with the US Mail routed through Troy before Piqua. It's always Cincy then Piqua. (And letters all are stamped with Columbus.) I just don't get that part...

The package was stamped with $2.80 for shipping, which isn't bad. I paid $3 for shipping and handling, and the bubble envelope has to have been worth more than twenty cents. The book is almost as large as my computer and is really a nice book. It has 88 pages, which ironically is the number of counties in Ohio, a decent map of all the park locations, their office addresses, as well as a color-coded page and sticker for each park. (Though I would rather have the stamps. They are nice stickers though.)

It's a Surface Go though, so not really that big.

Also, a few blank stickers to fill out that last page. 

Alphabetical! Definitely easy to find the park's pages.

The page for Hocking Hills. 

I am not sure how long it will take to hit all of the 75 parks, being that I am nearly at the western edge of Ohio. I will say that I have camped in or visited at least 4 of the State Parks so far. I camped at Lake Loramie State Park a few times in High School as well as with my son's Scout groups. I camped once at Grand Lake St Marys and raced a half-marathon around part of it as well. Harrison Lake is where we camped at for the Mainly Marathons race a few years ago.  (We found out after leaving that they found a dead body there a few days before we arrived.) Finally, I was at Hocking Hills last week for the meteor shower. 

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.

The small things

 My youngest son tried out for Cross Country this summer, and it didn't go well for him. He lacked the drive really, though a few other things factored in. Still, he decided that he likes trail running, and since I am the trail runner in the family, I'm the one to take him running. (Also, I lost a lot of speed over the last few years, so we are close in pace.)

I've taken him out twice now, and it has never been a dull trip. The first trip out last week had us just missing a car crash from a pickup truck pulling a trailer running a stop sign then smashing into another car. It rattled us a little, and we only got a mile in. He got to see four bunnies, so that made him happy. Seriously, he hates seeing an odd number of rabbits. Four is good, three is bad. Also, five is bad. We did a new section of trail, so I didn't really know a lot about it. Still, it was fun.

So, this time we went back to a different park entrance, and off running we went. However, this time I introduced a new challenge. We were going to cross the river. Now, I have done the river crossing a few times, once in a race, and at least once on a training run. It isn't a huge river, and maybe a foot deep in a few places. My son has never done a river crossing, so new territory. I told him to be careful and promptly fell into the river with my first step. I managed to keep the phone and key fob out of the water, and got up. My leg is scratched, and will probably be bruised in the morning, and my leg just kind of hurts. I asked him if he still wanted to cross, and he gleefully jumped on into the river and we walked across. (This all wound up being witnessed by a family that was playing in the river, including some smaller kids. So, yeah, fun.) 

Once on the other side, we continued down the trail for about a half-mile and turned around. By this point, my son realized that he forgot to put on his anti-chafe before we left, so we walked the mile back to the car. (Without falling in the river again!) He actually found it amusing how his feet seemed to dry quickly, which makes sense because we bought him trail shoes a few weeks back. I was in an older pair that were cheap, but still, trail shoes. He is already looking forward to the next time he can do a water crossing. 

It isn't the grand adventures I'd love to be able to partake in all the time, but it was fun to be out with him running trails. I've hiked or run trails for years, and that seems to be the format my son prefers as well. My wife prefers roads and paved trails, so it works out better for me to be the one to take him. Now if we can just get our speeds up a bit more, we might enter some races. (If they ever start having them again...) 

More local stuff canceled

I guess I knew the Bradford Pumpkin Show was canceled already, but it didn't click until today. In this area, the Pumpkin Show was infamous in the greatest of ways. I only got to go once growing up, and in high school, we were warned about the risk of attending.

Now, I graduated in the late '90s, so things that were against the rules back then were slightly different. School shootings were not a real concern, and aside from the student that had serious asthma triggered by stink bombs, there wasn't a lot of the school administration warned us about. Except for the Pumpkin Show.

Now, we knew that guns and knives were not allowed. It was mentioned once or twice a year, and was treated with the idea of "No Shit Sherlock!" The Pumpkin Show was considered to be a threat ten times worse. What kind of dark debauchery was to be found? Sex? Drugs? Rock and Roll? Nope. (Well, maybe some Rock and Roll.) According to the school, something ten-fold worse. Confetti. Seriously, announcements the week leading up to the festival warned that anyone caught with a bag of Pumpkin Show confetti would be suspended on the spot, without mercy.

I don't know how I came upon my only visit there growing up. My dad took me before he moved to SC, so he was probably there to take pictures for the newspaper or something like that. I wish I could remember more about going, but I did get a foam covered nunchuck, a bag of confetti, and from a game, a doubloon. I remember it was either blue or purple, and that's it. I was told it had something to do with Mardi Gras and the floats, and it fascinated me. I really don't know what happened to it, sadly. I don't know what Krew it was from, or any of that.

It wasn't until my second trip to New Orleans before I got some doubloons. To be fair, the first time I went was in November for a race, but the second time around was in February of this year. Some of the early parades were underway, but the big ones would be the weeks following. Still, I got a doubloon. Sort of.

Well, a wooden nickel...

One of the last days in NOLA on my most recent trip, we happened on a flea market of sorts. That's really the best way for me to explain it, an outdoor tourist flea market. While there, I found a booth selling doubloons out of a bowl, and I bought a few. Maybe it was twenty. I forget. I gave a few away when I got back, cheap souvenir.

Not all of them were PG. This one is.

I don't know if I would bother getting more of the doubloons on another trip though. I am glad to have the ones I got, but aside from the wooden nickel, I didn't see their parades. I don't think I would go back during the busier Mardi Gras weeks, I can't afford it. (If someone else wants to pay, sure...) I do want to go to their aquarium though. (It is next to the Puma store, where I like getting my running shoes.)

My first vacation

I grew up in a house that liked to travel. Not usually far, but still, we traveled. As I got older, it changed from a few trips further east into visiting my sister in college in Chicago. Still, traveling became ingrained in who I am.

 The first trip I remember was to Myrtle Beach. My family loaded into my grandparents' van and the six of us drove from Ohio to Myrtle Beach just after Christmas in 1986. We stayed in a hotel penthouse my two uncles and my only cousin met up with us. I don't remember much about the penthouse, though it must have been the nicest hotel room I ever stayed in, considering that there were three kids and six adults there. As a six year old, it was a great trip. My cousin taught me to play the card game War, and I got a little rubber dinosaur from eating at Pop-Eyes, which I played with while riding in the back of the van. I'm pretty sure I lost that dinosaur about a day later. It was my first real vacation, what little I remember of it.

Adventure was a real theme to that trip though. While I don't really remember a lot from that trip, and most of those memories could also have been made at home, there was some excitement.  We woke up on New Years' Day to a large storm. To a first grader from Ohio, it seemed like a hurricane. Really, it was just a major winter storm with gale-force winds meeting with a high tide and a few feet of storm surge. It was far different than any storm I had ever seen, and with large picture windows, it was a sight to behold. We saw a police car get pushed by the high water in front of the hotel. A day or so after the storm, we returned home.

The adventure didn't quite stop with the ride home though. The pool at the hotel had a water slide, and I loved that thing. That love was not returned however, and from getting water in my ear, I managed to get a nasty ear infection. It was gross and it managed to spread to my nose before I made it to a doctor. I missed at least a day of school though, and I am wondering in hindsight if that has been a cause to my typical sinus infection that recurs every so often on that side of my head.

That was the only vacation my grandparents had with all of their children and grandchildren together. A few years later my grandparents moved from Ohio to South Carolina, My uncles are both now in Florida, and my cousin is in Connecticut. My sister left for college in Chicago, and my parents divorced with my dad eventually moving near my grandparents in South Carolina. I eventually headed to college in Michigan, before returning to Ohio. In so many ways, this was my first taste of travel, and it set a high bar, even if I can't remember most of it. Since then I have been to around twelve states and four foreign countries. I've driven to New Orleans and Orlando. Had Covid not hit the US this year, I probably would have made my second drive to Busch Garden Williamsburg.

Covid has really scaled back adventuring in many ways, but adventures are still out there to be had. Granted, since Covid has come into play, I have still been lucky enough to make it to two amusement parks, and even got my first photograph of a comet, Neowise. I really am looking forward to the Renaissance Festival this year, though I now wish I had bought that plague mask in New Orleans when I had the chance.

If comets are bad omens, Neowise is really late to the party. 

Vintage: I'm not dead

 

Monday, April 2, 2018 (Copied and edited from my previous blog in April 2021)

Last weekend was the Carmel half marathon. I suppose it was also the 5k, 8k, and full marathon as well, but I didn't run those, and their relevance is of slightly less importance in context.

This was one of my hardest half's to date, as well as being my 10th. (11 if one counts the debacle at Columbus a few years back, but hey...) It may have been hard due to lack of training, or that annoying voice in my head that said "you're gonna die." Not my voice, mind you, but my doctor's voice.

I do have a number of health issues, who doesn't, and a few months back, I finally got in to see a doctor. Last week, just days before the race, the doctor outright said "You shouldn't run, you'll have a heart attack and die." Though I guess to be fair, she also said that barring that, I would probably die of cirrhosis of the liver, because of reasons. (Fatty liver, not from drinking. Probably.)

Being the stubborn guy that I am, I arrived at the packet pick up, after driving two hours to Indiana, ready to drop to the 8k instead. Hey, I've done some 3 mile runs, 5 miles wouldn't be too bad. Then I saw it, mocking me.

An innocent shirt?

no...

It literally has my name on it. 

Now, being mocked by a shirt is bad, I guess, but they also told me it would cost ten bucks to downgrade to the 8k. Screw that, I was going to do the half, or die trying. (My deductible for the year is almost fulfilled.)

Now, there were logistical issues to consider with the hotel, which would have been alleviated by downgrading my race, but plan B was for my wife to go back after the race and check out, though that isn't ideal. After having a mishap finding the hotel (the GPS was more thinking Jeep than useful directions after about 275 roundabouts) we were surprised to find that our hotel was a partner hotel for the race, and offered a 2 pm checkout, much better than the 11 am we were expecting. It also gave us a shuttle ride to the start of the race.

Suddenly, almost everything was in place to run the half, except I forgot my hydration belt. By a twist of fate, another runner who we gave a ride to from Dayton gave us a hydration backpack as a thank you for the ride, and I was set to do the half.

In the morning, I got into my corral next to a guy named Greg. Greg had a shirt on that talked about various replacement parts he has received, and he was also a cancer survivor. We talked a bit before the race, and we were together the first few miles. I knew he was a back of packer, and I thought it would be a better idea to hang around him instead of push myself. He made a comment about two miles in about how I was jogging and he was walking, and we were at the same pace. Yes, I am that slow sometimes... He would eventually pass me, and I never caught up. (He finished 15 minutes ahead of me.) I didn't come in last though, by like a dozen people. (I've done worse... )  Still, with an official time of 3:54:55 it was my second worst half marathon. Maybe it would have been better had the first song on my playlist not have been "Climbing a Chair to Bed" by Dropkick Murphys.

You want something out of nothing, you want blood from a stone

To banish all your enemies and wish them safely home

Some would say insanity or crazy, better still

Cut off your nose to spite your face, for life you've lost all will

Now you've mingled with your demons and depression's your excuse

But your lack of conscious effort is a bourbon triple proof

You've expelled the for your lobby but they lurk behind the door

It's a noose of your own making and it's rotten to the core

Are you too afraid of living to make a man's mistakes?

Too afraid of dying 'cause you fear what lies in wait?

Too sad to see the truth never knowing what it takes?

Are you too afraid of dying 'cause you fear what lies in wait?

Seriously, when there is a voice in your head saying you might die, this is not the best song to play. Or maybe it's the best. I really don't know for sure. Either way, this race shows I should be ok for at least the 10k and 5k at the Flying Pig. A bit worried for the half, but still, I am feeling better. I might want to find a doctor that expects me to put up a fight instead of dropping dead though.