Carmel Marathon Weekend 2021

 

Carmel Marathon Weekend is sort of a sore spot for me. Not this year so much, but my first attempt was a dumpster fire that would have fit well with 2020's year of the plague. Maybe substitute my great 2020 R'n'R Nola race weekend with this one. 

Still, this was set to be a better weekend. I packed what I needed, and I only signed up for the 5k this time. I should have signed up for the 10k, partly because I could probably push myself that far, and also because I forgot my wife was signed up for the full marathon. (To be fair, she had signed up for the 2020 Marathon, which got deferred to this year because 2020. I signed up a week before the shirt deadline.)

We got to the downtown outdoor expo, got things in place, and went to find the hotel. I would like to say this was less of an adventure than last time, but the hotel was on a roundabout and the GPS thought it was a different exit from the roundabout. We finally found the right entrance though and got checked in. 

It was still early, so we headed over to Meijer for food for the hotel room. As we were finishing, my wife got a message from the Cincinnati rep of Half Fanatics, and we met her at a Mexican restaurant nearby. It was really good and cost us a bit less than what we pay locally. For us, it is better than pasta before a race.

The 5k for me went decently enough, especially since I really haven't been running a lot recently. I had almost the same pace as a race I did last December. I am still staying sub 50, maybe one day I'll get back to sub 40 again. (My pace for this race was very similar to the first 5k of the Half course from 2018)

It took another three hours for my wife to finish her race, which was a large PR for her. We had the hotel for an extra night, so we didn't have to rush back. That was nice, other than the higher cost from it being Easter weekend. I don't know if I will return to that race, though. If I do, it will need to be for a race longer than a 5k. It did have nice medals...

Lockington attempt #2

With Spring Break arriving, I had a little more free time, so I made another attempt at figuring out the Buckeye trail near Lockington Dam. The parking lot was still closed off, but luckily, there are two parking lots. The second one was still open, but there is a caveat. It's a mile from the main parking lot, across the top of the dam.

I'll be honest, I am not 100% sure I have made that full walk between the two sides before. I did ride my bike across many years ago though. It was a great day though, so across the dam I went.

There were a few blazes near the far side, including at the picnic area. Still, I couldn't quite figure out the path from there. 

I explored some more, down onto a dirt trail, which required getting over some fallen trees. I am glad that I have the hiking pole as I climbed, even with the camera around my neck it was a great help. After about a mile and a half of hiking, I turned around and headed back to the car. I saw another paved trail to explore, but it didn't appear to be related to the Buckey Trail. 

I finally broke down once I was home and ordered the digital trail maps for the Buckeye Trail. I hardly touched it on the hike, but now I know where that is. With the main parking lot closed though, it might be a few hikes to finish exploring. 

Testing out the new toys

 

I have been hiding out, waiting for hunting season to end, and finally got out with some new toys I picked up over the last few months. Winter is rough on me, but spring can be more fun, when it isn't raining.

I needed to put the new stuff through their paces, and get a solid hold on how they work. First out, I went over to Ludlow Falls, where I have taken pictures a few times before. Well, once, at least. I think it was long enough ago that it was on my Sony 828, although it might have been the Fuji S2. I can't find that archive at the moment, so it doesn't really matter. I arrived at the falls and parked behind a sheriff. I checked to make sure my parking job was ok, and he said he doubted it but didn't really care. He told me not to jump in the water and drove off. 

I'd like to think I am smarter than that. Largely because I can hardly swim, so yeah, I'm not cliff diving into a literal death trap. 

I headed to the upper observation area, and put on an ND1000 filter, and aimed for the waterfall. I have previously used ND filters to slow water down before, but I haven't done so in a long time. Even then it would have been with an ND 2 and 4 stacked. I am a little shaky on the math of it, but I think this new filter is about 3 times slower than the stack I had used before. 

But it worked great! Of course, the main observation area is nice, but... I wanted closer. By closer, I mean to the water, I was already as close to the falls as I could get. So I made my way down an old path to the streambed, and hiked back towards the falls, using my tripod for stability as I went. It was a little slippery, but I got as close to the falls and the middle of the channel as I could while staying dry. 

They may not be the most impressive falls in the land, but worth the hike. Still, I wasn't done testing out the new gear. I hiked back up to my car, and headed to another park I had only been to once before, and I think that was without a camera. 

The Blankenship Riverside Sanctuary is a small little park on the side of the road just outside Covington, Ohio. The most prominent feature seen as you drive by is the old closed-off bridge. Of course, driving by hides so much as well. Hiking the trail towards the fishing and canoe area (What kind of sanctuary allows fishing?) I noticed the bridge to the bridge.

From the road, and the parking lot as well, this looks like a driveway to the closed down bridge. The stonework on it was nice, and unless you hike down to see it, you wouldn't even know it was there.

 To me, it was far more impressive than the old steel bridge. 

I wasn't there though to play with the ND filter, I was instead putting my "new to me" zoom lens from KEH. It gives me much better zoom ability, but it is a heavy lens. I like the extra power it gives me, and it is a little easier to manual focus when I need to, but I like the lighter kit lens I started with for most things. This was really my third time taking the lens out, I used it once for some nice deer shots when I made sure it worked before my wife's birthday run, which I used it for as well. This was the first time I took it out using it to see what I could really do. Not testing it, not getting event pictures, but testing myself. 

I have plans to correct a wrong in a few weeks. Last year I went to Hocking Hills for astrophotography, I plan to go back and actually get pictures on the trails. I hear it is too good of a park to have missed it in the daytime. Then I will see what I can do, and both lenses are going to be pushed as far as I can take them.

Carriage Hill MetroPark

I headed out with the camera for the first time this year, and because I needed to hit Target, it set me to finding a park near the store. I had the option of a few parks but settled on Carriage Hill Metropark. I had never been there before, so I put on my hiking shoes and headed down.

The weather wasn't nearly as nice as they said, although it did refrain from raining. Still, with rain the day before, the trails had sections of mud and some standing water. I figure that having hiking shoes means nothing if I am not willing to walk in the mud and puddles though. I did almost slip a few times, but I stayed upright. 

The trails were mostly empty, I did see a few people near the parking areas, and a few footprints further back in the woods, but it was a nice and quiet few miles in the woods. I still wish I had a longer lens for my a6000, a few birds got away from the camera, but really, the hike itself is what I needed. Now if I could have had some sunlight too... 

Spring will get here, eventually. Probably. And maybe I'll just carry two cameras. That'll show the birds. Probably not. A short hike with two cameras just seems like overkill.

Busy few months

 It has been a busy few months, moving towards full time at work and the long daily drives that come from that. I haven't been out an about as much, as that really kicked in as I recovered from the injury I sustained at the Locks in October. 

That isn't to say that I haven't done anything, just nothing eventful per se. I  actually came in 3rd of 4 in my age group at a local 5k, and I did come up with a plan for hiking until hunting season is over. I might test that out this weekend, it is too soon to tell. 

I do need to find some extra time to explore next to where I work as well. A few weeks back, when I needed to get some fresh air due to health issues, I was going to do a quick walk to the park next to where I was working. In doing so, I found a trail! 

What is really strange about this was that when I looked up the park, that trail wasn't the trail on the park map. So... There should be at least an adventure worth taking on. Maybe that will be the next day off for me since I am not about to go hiking very far in my work clothes. Sure, I did go about 0.2 miles down that trail, but that isn't the same thing as 3 miles. 

I'll be glad when hunting season is over, I miss the State Parks. Still, I think I have found some safe places to hike until then, but only if I can get out the door. 

Not the Hike I Planned

The Buckeye Trail got me good today. I had a late start due to waiting for a new mattress to get delivered, and I decided I would head up to Lockington Dam and try to look at the Buckeye Trail in that area. However, the parking lot was closed for construction. A sign said I could park by the street, but I didn't feel comfortable doing that this time. I decided to go elsewhere.

I ended up in Lockington itself and came across the locks in the middle of town. They had the blue blazes on them, which I thought was odd since my rudimentary information about the trail didn't match up with that. I parked and began to wander around it, and I decided to hike as far as I could. It wasn't the dam, but hey. I probably should have stayed on the more east side, but I didn't feel like backtracking, so I climbed down a somewhat more technical section. This involved a short drop, which looked really easy. I was wrong. My right foot came down hard, the heel hitting stone instead of the dirt I thought was there, It hurt almost as much as when I almost lost my foot to an office chair back in 2019. I am stubborn though, so I continued the hike. 

I made it practically to the end of the historic area when I turned around. I came across a couple from down near Dayton that were checking out the locks, and I re-hiked much of it talking to them. It wasn't a long hike, but we did make it to the creek and the end of the maintained canal bed. (The part the donkeys or horses or whatever ended there, maybe on purpose, maybe from the 1913 flood.)

We were almost back to the parking lot when the guy from the couple asked if the lens cap on the ground was mine. Now, I like to believe I am very careful with my lens caps. I tend to keep them safe when I take them off, and this was a weird place to drop one. Still, I looked, and sure enough, it was a Sony 40.5mm lens cap. I picked it up, and it had a fine layer of red dust on it, just like my hiking boots. I thought it was weird, but as I held it in one hand, I reached back and grabbed my lens cap out of my back pocket. Yes, it was still where I left it, and an identical lens cap was in my hand. Nobody else we saw on the trail had a camera, so it had to have been there for a while. I guess now I have a spare lens cap. I can't say that in my twenty-five years of using SLR's or better that I have ever had an extra lens cap. I think I only bought one cap on its own in my life, and that was when I bought a used lens that lacked said cap. 

I headed home, actually following the blue blazes along the road in my car as much as I could, and got my shoes off. My foot still hurts, especially if I try to bend it certain ways or to walk on it, but I am optimistic. Work won't bother it, so it should heal quickly. I think I am going to have to buy the real maps of the trail though, but that will have to wait. 

Tricks and Treats

 

With so many things canceled this year, we were lucky enough to still have Kings Island up and running. Not all of the Cedar Fair parks were so lucky, but a trade-off is that Haunt was canceled for 2020. Thankfully, they did replace it with Tricks and Treats Fall Festival. I suspect some things were repurposed from the postponed Carnival festival, as the Mardi Gras colors were really strong in the costumes. Adding in the food festival though was a great thing.

Two years ago we went to a similar festival at Busch Gardens Williamsburg and had planned to take the kids this summer until everything closed. This wasn't quite as nice, but it was up there. There are a few things I tried I might get again, and being that Chef Major is great at his job, it was all great food. That being said, BGW had theirs set by countries, and that made it more exotic. To compare beyond that is like apples and oranges. It just wouldn't be fair. 

Having season passes, we arrived about an hour before the gates opened, and had to drive past the park and turn around to get into the car line. It was strange seeing the line of cars stretching out that far, but we try to get there early. We were in the park about half an hour before it officially opened, and managed to find the line for Orion to be quite short. Luck was on our side, and we managed to get the front row, and it was a great ride. 

We then headed over to the Beast, and I got my first ride on the Beast for this season. It is sort of amusing that I hadn't been on it this year, last year I actually worked on the ride, and I spent a lot of time in that part of the park. 

Once that was done, we were ready to start with the food festival. (It didn't start until an hour after the park opened.) We got our tasting lanyards (6 items for $30) and went into the Brewhouse to pass the remaining time until the tastings would start. 

I think the Brewhouse is probably one of the most underrated parts of Kings Island. It has some of the best food, and the pricing is not really any different than the rest of the park. As a kid, and even as an adult before I had kids, I avoided it because I thought it would be too expensive. It is now among my favorite food spots at the park, losing out to the Coney BBQ. It has great giant pretzels, which is worth it for that alone, but it has a great secret perk. If there is a line, you can get cups of water from the bar, and they use bigger cups. We have drink plans, but sometimes we want water, and the cups there are easily twice the size of the other food places. That and the bartender is great. I've hung out in there a number of times, hiding out from a storm, enjoying the AC, or catching up with friends.

Finally, the time for the food samples had arrived, and we began our next lap of the park. I can't say what my favorite items were, though I am leaning towards either the Death Dog or the Dragon's Breath Wings. (The El Chupacabra was a solid third place though.) Looking at the pictures, definitely the Death Dog. The jalapenos on it were fresh and crisp. I personally love when they are fresh like that, pickled jalapenos are just too salty for me. 

While doing all of this, my wife took the opportunity to do the Trick or Treat event. I think she was only disappointed that there was only one station with Utz Cheeseballs.

She also had the chance to get on one of the "game shows" the park was holding. She was given a Jelly Belly on camera by a host that I swear looked and sounded like Cedric Yarbrough. Hers was not toasted marshmallow. Nay, it was STINKBUG. She did win a box of horrible flavor jelly beans though. Seriously, ALL of them are the trick flavors. There are none of the good ones. (I actually am partial to the grass ones from a few years ago. I might need to eat more veggies.) 

The holiday theming was really great too. It wasn't the Haunt we were used to, but it was still nice. They had a pumpkin carving area where you could buy well-decorated pumpkins, and they had a few that we really liked. None that we would actually buy, but we haven't done pumpkins for many years. The Bender one was tempting though...

We also played a basketball game in Planet Snoopy. I wanted to get this weird pumpkin creature, which only needed four baskets out of seven to win. 

I got zero.

My wife tried after me, getting two, which was good for a winter koala. I think she will hold that against me for years to come, so there is that...

It was a fun trip though, but I still miss Haunt.