Hiking

Over the weekend, we took a break from the craziness that is life & went for a hike with my parents. We drove to Middle Creek Wildlife Management Area & hiked around the game lands for about 2 hours.

Mom found this cool tree. If I were smaller, I would have tried climbing in!

It wasn't an overly strenuous hike, although there was some hill climbing. Mostly, it was just nice to be out in the fresh air to clear our heads & refresh for the upcoming week.

The view from the top was decent - it would have been much better on a clear day! The guide book said that when we reached the top there was a log bench to rest & take in the scenery. It truly was a log "bench" - a tree fell over & someone decided to leave it there for people to sit on. :-)

About midway through the hike, we came across the ruins of an old building (the chimney was still standing!) & this crumbling spring house. We could actually walk inside & see the water that was captured.

Part of the hike was on the old trolley rail bed. The ties had all decomposed, but the path was still full of rocks & very flat & straight. It followed the stream, so we enjoyed listening to the water & watching it flow.

We're hoping to make these Sunday afternoon hikes a permanent thing. Since we haven't been getting away as often as I'd like, we can at least bring the getaways closer to home!

Any recommendations for an interesting hike in the Harrisburg/Lebanon/Lancaster area? We're up for some new hikes!

Back to Nature

It had been way too long between trips to the family cabin. Until last weekend, we hadn't been up since Labor Day. Luckily, we'll be back again in a month!

We took 2 hikes, both to find overlooks that none of us had been to before. Dad saw the rock outcroppings from down on the main road & wanted to find them to see if the views were good.

I love the combination of hiking on the dirt road, paths, & blazing our own trails. It was fun venturing through the trees & jumping over rocks.

Things were pretty muddy, but that didn't stop us.

A few trees were down across the path. It wasn't hard to find each other through the brush, though. Since it's hunting season, we were all wearing orange vests for safety. It's always funny to look at us in our hunter orange when none of us actually hunt.

The sky was crystal clear on top of the mountain.

When we reached the first vista, we realized it wasn't so clear in the valley. Still, it's beautiful to see the hills & valleys covered in the thin fog.

Mom & I wore our earbands. It wasn't super cold, but when the breeze came along, the chill went right through us.

The guys just had hats on. And carried walking sticks. :-)

Along the way we passed several stands for hunters. This one was on the ground, but we saw a few that were mounted up in trees. Dad thought this one was pretty cozy.

Everything was moss covered. Did you know that moss only grows a few inches per year? It took a long time for some of the large rocks we saw to be covered.

We found it! From this overlook, we were able to see the road to the cabin of a family friend. The next day, we actually saw the cabin. These rocks were massive & the crevices between them dropped straight down for hundreds of feet.

We had such a great time exploring & breathing in the fresh air. I can't wait to go back. It's so relaxing & calming to be away from everything & outside. Hiking is one of my favorite forms of exercise. I just wish we had more opportunities to go.

Hawk Mountain

Here we are, ready for a great hike!

Because of work schedules, we couldn't do a full weekend camping trip, but we were able to meet up with our friends to go hiking for the day at Hawk Mountain.

It was a pretty hazy day, so we didn't see any hawks. We stopped at all the lookouts to check out the views anyway.

When we got to the highest lookout, there were tons of people sitting around on the rocks, talking about the hike up & eating granola bars. We walked through them & kept going onto the Skyline Trail. The sign wasn't kidding; there were plenty of rocks to climb. It was fun!

Down we went! I was really impressed with how well the trail was marked. The marks were placed closely enough on the rocks that we could follow them for the easier route down.

I'm getting there!

My view from the bottom up.

We stopped for a water break when we got to the River of Rocks. It's fascinating how in the middle of the forest there are just fields of rocks with nothing growing.  Later, we stopped at the next rock field to eat lunch. Grand total, it took about 3.5 hours to complete the hike. It was a fun one - I loved all the rock scrambling.

Afterwards, we headed to Long Trout Winery. I saw a sign for it on the drive up to Hawk Mountain, & since we finished hiking earlier than expected, we headed over.

It was an interesting place, that's for sure!

Very hippie...even the names of the wine were all about peace & love.

The bar was crazy!

We tasted a few wines, & decided to purchase a bottle of the Burnin' Bra, a peach chardonnay. The description? "The 60's were all about the freedom of choice - so choose wisely and set 'the girls' free." It was fruity without being super sweet, so we all enjoyed it. There was a nice patio to sit on that overlooked a very wooded frisbee golf course where we watched people play while we visited.

Afterwards, we headed to their campsite & started cooking dinner. We had spaghetti with fresh tomato sauce & vegetable foil packets in the fire. Of course, we finished it off with s'mores!

Sampling the noodles.

The fire was pretty smoky!

There we go!

My rock/chair. It was more comfortable than it looks. Sort of.

We stopped at Cabela's on the way home. That place is seriously overwhelming. We didn't purchase anything, but this was the stand out item was the Luggable Loo. Ew.

It was a fun day! We went home & headed right for bed.