Hocking Hills vacation

David had one of his vacation weeks in October, so we decided to take a little trip to Hocking Hills, a beautiful state park in south east Ohio.  We rented a cabin with a loft and a fireplace, and spent three days relaxing and hiking.  The weather was a little wet and cold, but we didn't let that slow us down.  Every evening we built a fire in the fireplace (David's favorite part of the trip just might have been chopping wood), and one afternoon when it was really raining, we stayed in and built a fort inside for Eliana.  She loved it!  Eliana seemed to enjoy the trip overall.  She liked the hiking backpack better this time than the last time we went to Hocking Hills.  Until the last day that is...  But it must have made a good impression on her because even now she likes to wear her little back pack (or "pack-pack" as she calls it) and put Mickey Mouse in it. 

The front porch on our cabin.

As you can see, it was a little rainy.  This was our first hike to Rock House.

The colors were beautiful in October!

Inside Rock House, which is a cave on the side of the sandstone cliffs.  Good hike for a rainy morning because it was nice and dry inside the cave!

We let Eliana run around a bit inside the cave.

Good hike!

Our second hike was to Conkle's Hollow.  It was beautiful inside the gorge, ending in a little water fall.  The water pooled there by the rocks, and there were lots of little fish swimming about.  That was Eliana's favorite part, until I yelled at her for walking into the water to check them out.  Guess she didn't realize it was too cold to be swimming.

That afternoon, it really started raining, so we spent some time inside the cabin.  While David grilled us lunch in the rain, Eliana and I played with the Yahtzee dice.  She thought they were little blocks so we built tiny towers with them.

After lunch we built a fort!  We added all the pillows from the couch and Eliana would have us lay down to take a "nap."  She would "pat pat" our back and say night night.  But don't think she would actually let us sleep.  After closing your eyes for a second, Eliana would then tell you to wake up and it was someone else's turn to nap.  We also put all of Eliana's plastic bugs inside her fort and then hunted for them with tweezers (they glow in the dark!).

The view of the fort from the loft.  

Once the rain stopped, we took one more hike to Cedar Falls.  Except we couldn't find Cedar Falls and just hiked around this area instead...

The next day the weather was much better.  We decided to hike to Cantwell Cliffs.  There were a lot of steps down!

At this point, Eliana decided she didn't like the hiking backpack anymore.

Mostly she wanted to be carried.  That's when we knew our hiking trip had come to the end.  What a great time!  I can't wait to go back.  This is definitely one of my favorite places in Ohio.