Hocking Hills Ohio: Ash Cave and Cedar Falls

This post is part of a travel series of our road trip in the midwest where we traveled to four states:  Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky and Indiana. We visited one state park, two national parks, and a historic farm..  To start at the beginning, go HERE.  The rest of the posts in consecutive order are HERE and HERE!

Hello!  I am back from my 4th of July holiday break and continuing on with my midwest road trip travel series I took back in May.  If you missed any of the previous travel posts in this series, you can quickly catch up by clicking on the links in blue small print above.

This week I will finish up our last day in Hocking Hills State Park and then next week I'll start covering America's newest National Park:  New River Gorge!

Ash Cave

Ash Cave is so cool!  It's a short out and back trail, 0.3 miles one way.  Even though it's a short hike, it's totally worth it because Ash Cave is the largest, most impressive recessed cave in the state of Ohio.

The horseshoe cave is massive!  It is 700 feet from end to end, 100 feet deep,  and 90 feet tall!  And the best part?  There is an awesome waterfall too!

A small tributary from the Queer Creek cascades gently over the edge into a pool of water below!  Boy, would this be fun to wade in or stand under on a hot summer day!

I don't know what I enjoyed seeing more, the massive rock formations or the waterfall.  I think it was a tie!

They had a sweet selfie platform where you could pose for pictures.

Look how tiny me and all the other people are against these massive rock walls!  We look like ants.

I can't leave without sharing the cutest outhouse ever at the trail head.  Just look at that moss roof!  😀

Here are some short videos of this cave and waterfall:

                                  Cedar Falls

Next up is Cedar Falls.  The trail to Cedar Falls is as awesome as the falls.  We loved all the crazy rock formations we had to scramble through.

Cedar Falls trail is a short 1/2 mile one way trail but it is considered strenuous because of all the rock formations and steps you have to work around.  To me, that was the fun part!  Just bring a pair of walking sticks and you will be fine!

At this point, you can just do the Cedar Falls trail or you  can intersect with the Gorge Overlook Trail and add more mileage to your hike.  Because this was my first time out hiking with my new hip, we just did the Cedar Falls trail.

Yes, the rocky steps can be tricky, but with walking sticks, I did great! Walking sticks are like handrails for me;  they keep me on my feet!

Halfway through this trail, you are treated to a beautiful waterfall.  You can read all about these falls in the plaque pictured below.

Of course it was picture time!  What an amazing back drop!

I really enjoyed this hike.  I found it just as interesting and beautiful as the falls itself.

And, like most of Hocking Hills, the trail has a pretty bridge on it.

Here is a short video of Cedar Falls for your viewing pleasure.

Have A Great Day!  Amy

Linking Up with these Fabulous Blogs HERE!

 

Noblesville, Indiana

This week's travel post is the last part of a travel series of our visit to see our grandchildren in Carmel, Indiana.  If you want to start at the beginning, go HERE. Other posts in chronological order are HERE,  HERE, HERE, HERE,  HERE,  HERE, HERE, and HERE!

This is the final post of a vacation I took last fall to the Carmel Indiana area to visit my children and grandchildren.  If you missed any of the fun things we did during our week long visit, be sure to check out the posts listed above.

Our last full day in Indiana we decided to check out the nearby town of Noblesville.  It is such a cute, busy little town with a lot of their original buildings still standing.

Noblesville is the fourteenth largest city/town in Indiana with a population of 51,969.  It is also listed as the fifth best place to live in Indiana with populations over 5,000.

This interesting historic building is now a "Museum of History" which was formally the sheriff's residence and county jail.  Wouldn't you like to spend the night in a county jail as nice as this one? 😁

The most extravagant building in town is the Hamilton County Courthouse which sits proudly in the town square.  

The courthouse features a three-story square tower.  It was built between 1877 and 1879.

The courthouse is a Second Empire style brick and limestone building. 

An old bell is on display in the courtyard of the courthouse and of course, Alethea had to check it out.

On the side of the courthouse is a veterans memorial.

We spent some time at this memorial taking pictures, as you will see at the end of this post.  The kids loved playing in the fall leaves that were captured between the memorial benches.

This next building is the First Christian Church established in 1897.  Now it is the Adler Building.  Twenty five years ago, Raymond Adler saved this building from the recking ball and now uses it for his law practice.

It is one of Hamilton County's oldest Christian churches.

I'm so happy Raymond Adler loves history and decided to save this beautiful old church!

And now, before I finish this post I have a few "Grandma & Me" photos to share.  I'm sure some of you may have noticed that I haven't been doing "Grandma & Me" photo shoots anymore.  It's not because I don't want to, I loved our monthly photo shoots!  But my grand babies just would not cooperate for the camera anymore and I got tired of trying to force the issue.  It makes me sad, because I really loved the beautiful pictures that came out of it, but what can I do?  I always said when I started doing them that I would only continue doing them as long as they wanted to.

But I can't end the post without sharing these hysterical photos...and a true example of how challenging it was doing a photo shoot with two toddlers!  In the scenes below we were in the midst of a photo shoot when Atticus pulled a stick out of Alethea's hand and it snapped in two.  If you look in the picture above they are both happy and smiling and both have sticks in their hands.  But those smiles quickly turned to tears when Alethea's stick broke.  At this point, I was so frustrated with trying to get two toddlers to sit still with me for a nice photo shoot, that when Alethea burst into tears, I burst out laughing and I couldn't stop myself.  My husband thought the combination of Alethea crying and me laughing so comical, that he just kept the camera going and caught all the live action in photos.

I love how Atticus just innocently keeps playing like he did nothing wrong, meanwhile Alethea is falling to pieces over a broken stick.  Oh the drama of toddlerhood!  😂

Well I hope you enjoyed my final post of our fall vacation to Indiana.  Next week I will begin one of two posts of my winter vacation in Indiana with the kids, then I will start a new series of Smokey Mountain National Park.

Have A Great Day!  Amy

Linking Up with these Fabulous Blogs HERE!