Honey Run Wilderness, Knox County, Ohio

We didn't get a chance to go fall camping this year because I have been traveling a lot for work. Sam and I have tired of the usual hiking spots nearby so haven't wanted to go out much. I drove by a sign for the Honey Run Highlands when I was driving Inga to a birthday party. After looking it up, I learned there is a little waterfall with about 4 miles of trails within an hour drive of our house. We met Uncle Joshua at the waterfall trailhead on this beautiful fall day for some hiking.

Honey Run Waterfall

 The waterfall parking lot is extremely close to the actual waterfall. You can almost see the fall from the road. There is a short trail from the waterfall to the Kokosing River where you will also find a small rock outcropping with a small cave similar to something you'd find in Hocking Hills.

Kokosing River

Kokosing River

Kokosing River

 Across the street from the waterfall parking lot is the main part of the park called the Honey Run Highlands. That is where all the trails are located. We hiked along the pine knob trail and then connected to the prairie trail back to our car. I will note the trail map provided by the county is not very accurate, the connector trail we took was not on the map, but it's pretty easy to navigate the park if you have a sense of direction and the map in your head.

Top of the Highlands with a view of the Kokosing River valley

It was a great find and also very close to trail access to the Kokosing Gap bike trail so you could see the waterfall and then go biking. You could also stop at the park if you were canoeing the Kokosing in the summer.

Inga hiked the entire ~2 miles and Malcolm did about 1 mile. Our kids are getting pretty good at hiking. Gives me hope for visiting the national parks out West.

Malcolm Turns One!

Malcolm turned one year old on Friday. His birthday present was daddy finally getting home from his business trip. Sam was a day late due to thunderstorms that canceled his flight. We had a party for Malcolm on Saturday. He and Inga were so excited the entire day neither of them really took naps before the party. Only the sugar rush from the cupcake kept Malcolm from falling to pieces before opening presents.

Playing with his cell phone and Auntie Beth

Wide eyed while everyone sings him happy birthday

Fascinated by the fire, but didn't quite get the concept of blowing out the candle

He really liked the cupcake

His 1 year portrait in "nice" clothes

Playing with his favorite gift, a jungle treehouse set

Allegheny National Forest July 2015

We went camping in the Allegheny National Forest with Lydia. After several weeks of almost constant rain, it was very nice to have a sunny weekend. I had planned out several hikes and sights each day and picked a private campground with pool to keep Inga entertained when we were at the campsite. The private campground (Forest Ridge) was a big hit with the kids because there were so many other kids at the campground to play with in the evening. Inga made several friends and was very sad to leave on Sunday.The only downside to the campground was it wasn't centrally located to all the cool sights in the national forest. I would probably stay at the Heart's Content campground next time.

On the drive up, stopped by Milton Lake near Alliance, OH for a picnic lunch. It had a nice picnic area with playground and plenty of sticks to through into the water.

Milton Lake in Ohio where we ate lunch.

Our first day in PA, we hiked to Hector Falls. Hector Falls does not have a marked trail and isn't noted on any maps we found. I read about it in a few blogs and it actually seems pretty well visited so I was a little confused why the trailhead and trail weren't marked at all. It's a very easy hike down a service road most of the way and then turns into a footpath that follows the creek to the waterfall. Inga managed to hike the entire 2 miles herself!

I can't remember what she was crying about, but this is pretty common in the morning any day of the week.

Sam at the top of the falls with Malcolm looking a bit worried.

Hector Falls

Lydia was in mushroom Heaven. She collected all these to identify later. 

Me and Inga at the top of the falls

For lunch that day, we drove over to Heart's Content Recreation Area, which has a stand of old growth hemlock, white pine, and beech. Sam had been talking to a Wiley's Finest customer on Wednesday taking an order and they said we had to go here because it was beautiful. Well, that customer was definitely right. 

Old growth forest at Heart's Content

The next day we stopped by the national forest ranger station and saw pictures of this really cool railway bridge, the Kinzua viaduct. It's actually a state park so the ranger station didn't really have any information on the park, but we decided to head that way to check it out. Turns out the Kinzua viaduct was blown over in 2003 during a tornado. The state park has a skywalk on the remaining section of the viaduct and is in the process of building a new visitor center at the park. I thought this was really cool and wanted to hike down to the bottom of the gorge, but there was no way Inga was going to be able to hike back up that day.

On the skywalk with Inga running off somewhere

The broken bridge at the bottom of the gorge

View of the gorge and Kinzua creek

I was the only one brave enough to stand on the glass floor.

For lunch we headed over to the Allegheny Reservoir to the Rimrock Overlook. It was a lovely view of the reservoir and made Sam talk about buying a boat for the rest of the day. There are stairs carved into the rock wall that descend to the base of the rock wall. It was a little hairy coaxing a 3 year old down and then back up again, but we managed. We also found this amazing cleft in the rock wall that had a spring in it, which caused very cold air to blow out the cleft in the rock like an AC vent.

Pretty typical photo with the kids making weird faces

Inga got to go swimming, run wild with the other kids, and ride the campground barrel train the last night. Malcolm was a little disappointed he was too young for all those activities, but he got lots of special attention from the adults. He even warmed up to Lydia.

I really like this area of PA and now know of lots more hiking and sight seeing. I can see many more weekend trips to the Allegheny National Forest in the future.

Spring Gardening

We haven't been doing any traveling lately because it's spring and that means time to get the gardens in order! Sam has greatly expanded the vegetable garden this year and we are going to put in another perennial bed around the patio.

This is just a cute picture of Malcolm.

Two new blueberry bushes and the corn, potato, and cucumber rows.

New raised bed for peppers. The bed on the left is for tomatoes.

Sam and his pretty garden. We have a full row of onions, broccoli, beets, radishes, bok choy, beans, more cucumbers, and garlic.

My pretty iris around the dawn redwood.

Sunflower circle that will grow into a little sunflower fort.

Reclaiming the area around the drainage creek that we cleared last year.

My front flower bed is very colorful this year.

Our herb garden with the tarragon and oregano that came back!

Malcolm at 8 months

I write these posts too late to really remember the interesting things he was doing at the time. I think at this point he was starting to pull himself up to standing on the coffee table. He's definitely a boy on the move and can crawl very quickly.

Easter in Oklahoma

For Easter, we flew to Oklahoma to visit my grandmother who is not able to travel. She had not met Malcolm yet and had not seen Inga since she was 9 months old. My parents, brother, and Uncle Mark were also there visiting. It was a mini Easter family reunion. 

Sam flew out a day earlier to visit Whole Foods and Sprouts stores in Oklahoma City and came the next day with the kids. It was a bit daunting flying with both kids by myself, but it actually went really well because Inga is a seasoned traveler. The key was making Sam take one of the car seats with him so I didn't have to navigate the airport with the kids, luggage, and two car seats.

My happy traveler. She was very excited to be on a plane. We even saw the lunar eclipse during take off.

Malcolm enjoyed the extra leg room of economy comfort 

 The day we arrived in OKC was a gorgeous spring day. Sam met us at the airport and we had lunch in Bricktown. Then we walked to the garden in downtown because they have a playground. Everything was in full bloom!

Strange "slide" at the playground

 Easter Sunday was much cooler. It wasn't that great of a day actually. We did Easter brunch at the Metro Wine Bar and Bistro, which is one of the nicest restaurants in OKC. I thought it was odd there was such a nice restaurant in north OKC, but then I realized it was across the street from the Chesapeake Energy complex. (It was also next to the Whole Foods.) The three course brunch was excellent and the kids were pretty well behaved for such a nice restaurant. Afterwards, we found another park for Inga to play. We did see my grandma, but I never had a chance to take pictures because I was busy keeping an eye on Malcolm.

Malcolm loves to torment his sister

The next day was a nice day again so we had a picnic lunch at the Martin Park Nature Center, which has a fun playground and some nature trails. First, we went to Sprouts to get the food and Inga found her fish oil.

 Grandma brought all the supplies for an Easter egg hunt, but her luggage was lost and didn't arrive until the night of Easter. We did the Easter egg hunt on Monday at the nature park. Inga had a great time looking for eggs and eating candy.

Uncle Morgan with his favorite nephew

 Again, I flew home without Sam because he stayed later in Tulsa to visit Whole Foods and Sprouts. Our flight out of Tulsa was delayed a couple hours so we didn't get home until 10:30pm. Malcolm had lots of fun at the Atlanta airport watching the planes and transport cars.

Watching all the planes come and go

The kids did really well flying and I got lots of compliments on how well behaved they were. I even got the pilot of our last flight home to help carry our luggage through the airport to the bus stop.

Malcolm at 7 months

Malcolm's biggest accomplishment this month was learning to crawl. He is also super excited to be eating big people food. He has reached the super happy, giggly stage that I absolutely love. He is also very heavy and a total mama's boy so my arms are getting a real work out.

Thumper made it into these pictures somehow

Big grin!

Crawling for the camera

Malcolm with his favorite stuffed animal, Refrito (it's suppose to be a Pinto pony)