Road Trips and Hike Reports

 This was an epic long hike.  I had been to this park once, by myself in October of 2019 I think.  I did a beautiful walk from the covered bridge (which is the central part of the trail network for many) to the fire tower and back. This gigantic loop hike from AllTrails however was a huge connect the dots adventure from a big dam, to Lyons Falls, through Hemlock Gorge and a few other park features ending, unexpectedly for us, at the very bottom of the dam with 175 stairs leading back to the top near our parked car.   The weather was warm but mild and nearly perfect for the entirety of our hike.  There were quite a few cars parked at the various trailhead parking lots but the park was so large and our route so ambitious and spread out that there wasn’t anywhere on the trail that we saw more than maybe 2 families together.  All together we did see enough dogs to fill a medium size dog pound though! It seemed like every couple or family had at least open canine companion with a tail waggi

 Our long weekend in Ohio started with a long drive.  On the way we took mostly US-20 West and then NY and PA 5 along the shoreline of Lake Erie.  The lighthouse was an impulse stop. Brian was driving and I was looking on the web and saw that it was only open until to and it was nearly 1 pm when we got there so I imagined we might be able to catch the last tour of the day.   We did catch (or rather cause there to be) the last tour and our tour guide, Dave (?) was very talkative and knowledgeable.  I noticed that he seemed very aware that different people find different aspects of the Lighthouse and museum interesting.  Besides the centerpiece of the lighthouse itself, the lighthouse keeper’s house is part preserved dwelling, part military museum.  There were little trinkets like a set of cost guard china and lots of domestic housewares etc and also larger things like the way the house itself was structured to keep the lamp oil away from the main part of the house or the way the lightho

 This is a favorite somewhat hidden gem of a park near Collierville.  They were just extending TN-385 when I left Memphis years ago but now that section is complete so the park is somewhat easier for people to get to but still just far enough away that there wasn't really any road noise and some sense of solitude. The hike makes a very nice loop around the lake which has many little fingers that increase the mileage. The trail is mostly well marked with non-standard colored arrow blazes. The Yellow trail seems to go on every possible extra diversion, the Green and Red always seemed to be on the same path and stayed as close to the water as possible.  It was surprisingly brisk  when we started the hike.  My shorts felt like an unfortunate costuming department error and I was thankful John had an extra sweatshirt in his vehicle. The hike was very enjoyable.  It did warm up as we went and the few showers that greeted us at the start were gone quickly.  A lovely send off to my brief t

 I'm on a work trip to Memphis and since I lived here before I was exciting to have the chance to revisit some old favorite places.  After an exciting busy day Friday at work I was so happy to meet up with my friend John from Nashville.  We squeezed in a few miles walk in the glorious afternoon sun at this rather deluxe city park in Collierville near where I used to live when I worked at FedEx. The weather all day Friday was astonishingly perfect. After a brief but impressive storm on Thursday the air quality was crystal clear and the humidity very low.  This park has a lot of facilities  including several softball fields and other sports stuff and almost 3/4 of a mile of elevated boardwalk over a surprisingly remote feeling area of swampy bayou type scenery. The boardwalk ends at a turn in the (very muddy at present) Wolf River.  The boardwalk is wonderful because it is not muddy or snake infested as I would imaging that area often would be outside the boardwalk. After getting to

 We both had a Monday off and this seemed like the perfect day to revisit this State Forest that I had gone to on a solo hike a few weeks earlier.  The gate that blocked my access before was open and the weather was much better this time and it was relatively warm and pleasant.  Last time I was here I thought I ended up going on some trail other than the one I really came intending to use. I'm not sure what lead me to think this because this time we started on the same trail I was on before. The difference was that, not being alone beyond a locked gate, we did the whole loop rather than just walking a part of the first trail and turning back. I didn't go crazy taking pictures and although Brian took some other pictures, I'm keeping this posting lightweight.