Trip to Hocking Hills

Yesterday mom and dad took me to a beautiful place - Hocking Hills - in southern Ohio. It is a state park that is full of sandstone cliffs and recessed caves. Incredibly beautiful! And best of all, dogs are allowed on all of the hiking trails! The weather was perfect, too. About 80 degrees in the afternoon and low humidity. We got there a little before lunch and did a quick little hike in the Old Man's Cave area (no pictures because mom forgot her camera in the car!). Then we snuck in to the primitive campground and had lunch at a campsite. It was so quiet - absolutely no one was in there. Then we went to Cedar Falls and went on a big hike!
A view of the creek and some of the huge trees and lush ferns.
Another view of the creek and some of the big boulders.
Here is one of a sandstone rock formation.

There were lots of bridges to cross!
Here I am at Cedar Falls! The photo is not great but you can kind of get the idea!
We also had lots of steps to climb! It was a real work out for me - steps, big tree roots, boulders and rocks to climb over - we're talking major hiking!
Another view of a sandstone formation and cliff.
I got to play in the creek for a long time - Dad loves the water too and got right in to encourage me. I like to get wet but don't yet like to go in and really swim. As long as I can touch the bottom, I'm good.

Hocking Hills can get crowded, especially on nice weather days, but if you walk far enough, you can generally get away from most of the people. Then you really feel isolated and can take in the serenity and beauty of your surroundings. We heard lots of neat birds - hermit thrush, wood thrush, towhee, black-throated green warbler, red-eyed vireo, red-shouldered hawk - and saw some great butterflies - redspotted purple, fritillary, tiger swallowtail - but we didn't find any dragonflies!

It takes us a little over an hour to get to Hocking Hills. Perfect for me because I rested up on the way down and on the way back! Mom wishes the trip was a little shorter so that we could go more often. That sounds good to me too! I know I was a really good boy while we were there so hopefully we'll go back again soon!

Gotta zoom!

Ricky