A Time In The Outdoors

Took a little four day trip with Ellis, Alaire, Michael, and Wyatt.  To a cabin in the woods...way back in the woods.  So far back that they only reception you could find was way back up the hill, behind the cave, and you had to hold your phone as far above you head as possible.  And then you might only get two bars!  Or randomly in the middle of the night you would hear a beep and you would have service for about a minute and then back to no service.  You just never knew...spotty at best.

Oh the stories that we could tell.  For each one of the 160 shots I finally edited there is a story.  But don't worry I chose only the best for the blog.

 

So as usual we are flying by the seat of our pants, really have no idea where we are going, just following the good old GPS.  We are starting to hear rumblings of hunger throughout the van and we decided to stop for gas and don't cha know there is a Subway in the gas station.  Alaire grabs her fishing hat? and heads in.  Mind you that it is 80 degrees and her hat is wool!

There are only two seats and those are occupied so we made lemonade out of lemons and had a picnic in the van.

We are so close...'turn left at the sign.  There is hard road and then it turns into a gravel road'...narrow, gravel, potholed, slipping down the hillside, road...out in the middle of nowhere!

But they have two chickens, three dogs and 12 ducklings.  Heaven, I'm in heaven.  And our cabin is right on the lake.  Literally we can fish off all three decks.

Oh, and did I mention that there are a few (three) caves on the property and a natural bridge?

The kids all loved this one...well, two of them loved it!  The other one liked it okay.  And the last not so much at all.

But fishing was the name of the game for Ellis and Alaire.  They would fish from sun up to sun down if we would let them.  After day one they were baiting their own hooks, taking off the fish, and getting snags and snarls like nobodies business.  That was were I came in...master snarl unraveler.

Alaire was patient the first few days.

Pappy giving a little instruction.

Alaire was the first one to catch a fish on the trip...a large mouth no less.

Our first hike!

Complete with a swinging bridge.

 Hmmm...do we really want to do this?

We made it to the top!  And that is as far as I could go.  Mark took the kids on to the other side and down the mountain in hopes to ride the sky lift down.  Nope, not me!  I turned around and left the way that I had come. (the sky lift wasn't open so they had to take a different trail back to the van.  A little more hairy than the way we came up the mountain.

And I ran into Mr. Copperhead.

Hiking and fishing.  Fishing and hiking.  Ellis caught his first fish.

If they wanted to go to the cave they had to hike with me the mile around the lake.  Along the way we would look for things in nature, write our names in the sand and just have fun chatting.

Ellis, Alaire,Wyatt, and I too a short hike down the road to a fishing hole where I saw lots of fish when we drove in a few days earlier.  As you can see Ellis caught another one and I am in the background unraveling a snarl Alaire somehow came up with.  I give my dad and popaw lots of credit now that I have walked a mile in their shoes.  It is a wonder they ever took any of us fishing...all they did was undo snarls.

Wyatt using his slingshot.

Hike number two or three, I can't remember.  What I remember is that Mark said it was a short hike.

Oh no, here we go again!

Now this is a first.  I have had to walk through chemicals after caving but never have I had to wipe off my boots before going into the woods.

 Pappy having a very serious conversation about staying with the group, staying in the middle of the path, not doing anything stupid because he didn't want to have to come back next year and put up a marker because someone fell into the gorge and died.  A little scare tactic ever hurts.

I have no idea what this is.  Thinking maybe grasshopper spit.

Getting a little tired.  By this time I think we were on mile three.

Water crossing were fun.  Everyone thought Wyatt looked like Gandalf of Lord of The Rings.

 Remember that talk Mark gave everyone about staying on the path, not getting close to the edge....he should practice what he preaches!

We ended up hiking close to 8 miles.  We are were sweaty messes!

Great views of the gorge.

We are all starving so Mark asked a lady getting in her car at the gas station where we should eat.  Her words, "There is a little whole in the wall that serves the best hamburgers right behind the gas station."  At that point we would have eaten in the gas station...we were all starving!  And the burgers did smell awesome!  In a few days you will need to go to our Eating Our Way Thru OHIO and see what we had.

A little pick me up before going back to the cave.

A little whittling practice for Wyatt with his new knife.

The weather got a little chilly that evening...and out came the bugs!

Ellis was excited about the fishing but he has since found a new passion!

 With his trusty fishing pole he actually caught these little guys...not sure if they are salamanders of newts.

He would catch them and then put them in a puddle.  At one point I think I counted five.

Between the two of us that afternoon we caught 12 fish 'large' enough to put on the stringer and a few we had to let go.

 These are the only shots I could get of our cabin.  The first one is the back of the cabin and this one is the side where you go in.  There were two decks on which we hung our hammocks.

 You could literally sit in the swing and cast off the deck and catch fish.

Our little private dock.

We had a different grub master each day.  Their job was to make up a menu for the day, breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  We had to switch it up a few times but we got all the meals in.  Tonight it was hot dogs.

And by the looks of things they were hungry and the hot dogs were delicious!

 Ellis wanted to make pies for breakfast.  I talked him into making pies for dessert one night.

He loved it!  And no camp out is a camp out without making s'mores.  Yes we did that too!

 This is Tomahawk...well, that is what Alaire and Ellis called him.  Photo bomb by Pappy.

Our last night.  Everyone is so tied...please can we go to bed!

 

Little did we know how long the night was gong to be.  After checking everyone for ticks (which we found plenty) we were off to bed.  Only to have to load Michael up in the van with Mark in search for and ER because Michael had a really bad earache.  He had been complaining all week.  We kept him supplied with pain meds and a heated rice bag.  At 10:30 our last night he and Mark were headed out in the fog to find relief.  The closest hospital was about an hour ways in Winchester.  They finally made it back around 2:30AM.  Long ride home for everyone because we played musical beds.  Wyatt slept through all of it and was stunned to find out that Michael had been to the ER.

 

Reviews from everyone indicate that we are all willing to do it all over again next year...as long as we get a bigger cabin!