Hocking Hills Weekend

A little over a year ago, we received a very nice thank-you from a next door neighbor, in the form of a gift certificate to The Inn at Cedar Falls in Logan, Ohio. She'd visited the Hocking Hills area and had stayed at one of their cabins, and because it's such a beautiful place, she decided to gift us with an overnight at the Inn. So, over a year later I finally got around to looking up the information and making a reservation. They normally require a 2-night stay - which wouldn't work for us - but because this is the off-season they allowed us to reserve just one night at the Inn. Perfect! I was a little concerned because this is, after all, February, for Pete's sake, and the big deal about the Hocking Hills area is the outdoors - caves, trails, waterfalls, gorges, hills and valleys and so on. But a mini-vacation is good any time, and we don't mind bundling up and trekking around outdoors in the cold. So we visited our local Outdoor World a couple of weeks ago and stocked up on hand warmers, foot warmers and thick wooly socks, and I bought some new thermal underwear. I dragged my flannel-lined Bean jeans out of the attic, pulled out plenty of scarves, hats and gloves and we were all set! We were on our way Saturday morning about 10:00.

The drive was exactly 2.5 hours, driving north, then east - and more east - into the hills of eastern Ohio. The scenery was wintery but good - snow-covered fields, small towns, with the landscape becoming more and more hilly the further we went. We arrived well before check-in time (3 p.m.) so we decided to explore the back roads in hope of finding some lunch. Turns out there's no fast food, no restaurants of any sort for miles around, but we lucked out when we stopped at a small gift shop and discovered that Kathy, the proprietor, makes homemade soup, muffins, cookies and more. We had mugs of soup while we chatted with her, and she gave us some inside scoop on a couple of local places to visit. First stop - an old covered bridge in Vinton County, the Cox Bridge, built in the late 1880's. No longer used, but nice to see. A local person who was driving past slowed down long enough to tell Chris that the bridge has a reputation of being haunted (something like that) ... we didn't notice anything creepy or ghostly! Too cold for that, I guess.

We drove on, turning left, then right, then left as directed by Kathy, hoping we were on the right track to find Lois' Antiques, where there was a small antique shop as well as a new baby lamb to be seen. On they way we passed a farm with none other than my favorite farm animals - cows! Great big furry beasts, I'm not sure what breed, but they certainly didn't mind the cold weather as they lay there munching their feed, staring (glaring?) at us city folk with the cameras.

Almost immediately after passing that farm, we noticed a snowy field with a flock of large dark birds - very large birds - moving around. We backed up to get another look and figured they must be pheasant - or maybe wild turkeys? Chris managed to get a few pictures from his side of the car. I need to remember to look through our bird book to see what they were ....

Anyway, we finally came upon Lois' Antiques and the Weaver Tree Farm. These folks have a piece of heaven on earth, with a beautiful old home sitting atop a hill, overlooking a valley dotted with their growing crop of Christmas trees. Wow! I'd love to wake up every morning with a view like theirs:

The antique shop was tiny, cold and a little disappointing - oh, well! Lois was no where to be seen, but her husband Frank was on hand to chat and tell us about their old dogs, the shop, and their bird feeder activity. Nice old guy! We asked about the baby lamb and he obliged by taking us across the road to the barn to visit the sheep (all with bells around their necks) and the baby. The barn was dark except for the open door into the field beyond, so it was tricky lighting for taking pictures. And the baby moved quickly between all the adult sheep - camera shy. They had several sheep with crazy multiple horns - can't remember what breed he said they were. A smelly but interesting side trip!

And all this was just the beginning of the weekend. More later - I need to eat some dinner! And I need to check out the window to see if our second winter storm has started yet - we're due for some combination of rain, freezing rain, sleet, ice or snow during the night, continuing into tomorrow.

How many days until Spring? ....