Soggy Camping

We went camping in Hocking Hills, Ohio last weekend. The forecast was for rain, but we had no idea how MUCH rain! The park got nearly three and half inches of rain on Saturday and Sunday! I guess we're lucky we didn't float away in our tent overnight!

The boys were so excited for our adventure. For long road trips, we put the middle seats down in the van and put them in the way back. For some reason, they complain and get into trouble less! We were still at least an hour away from departure and I found them already settled in their seats. I remember doing the same thing as a kid...and my parents telling me I'd be spending enough time in the car on the trip...of course, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree and I shooed them out of the car to run around for a bit longer!
It rained the entire drive to the park, but we were lucky enough Friday night to get our tent set up in a dry spell. We were meeting friends from graduate school, and we got started on our pie iron pizzas and s'mores as soon as they got there.
It was raining the next morning, so we had our backup breakfast of poptarts and cheerios. Thankfully, our friends arrived in a popup camper, which most likely saved the weekend! We decided to brave the elements and try one of the shorter hikes, Ash Cave. It was only 1/2 mile from the road to the cave and our rain jackets kept our top halves dry. Even so, we were pretty soggy by the time we got to the cave.

The waterfall was pretty small. I'd love to go back in the spring!

Can you see all the raindrops?

Future miner?

This is Ash Cave. When they found it, there were huge piles of ashes inside from the Native Americans who had lived there.

Once we were thoroughly drenched, we headed back to camp and took advantage of the camper. Hamburgers, cooked on the charcoal grill under the awning for lunch, and games and a movie. It cleared up again for the afternoon/evening, so we did another hike at Old Man's Cave. It's an amazing area of caves and stone walls. The water was low, so the falls were small but it was still a great place to hike.

The boys loved exploring this miniature "cave":

This is upper falls. Pretty pitiful waterfall right now!

Rudy, in Old Man's Cave:

View from Old Man's Cave:

A-frame bridge at top and Frank Lloyd Wright-style bridge at the bottom:

The weather even held off enough so that we could cook out over the campfire that night for dinner. Tasty sausages and campfire e'clairs - yumm!!

Our fire men:

It poured. And poured and poured and poured Saturday night. We are quite pleased with the fact that our tent does seem to be waterproof - only a few small drops made it inside the whole night!

The weather never cleared completely Sunday morning, but it was dry enough to at least wring some of the water out of our gear and to make breakfast over the campfire...pie iron sausage and egg muffins...yum...love the campfire food :)

Charlie, trying to stay out of the rain:

Rudy really wanted to buy mini marshmallows for the trip, so the boys chased their breakfast down with mini-toasted marshmallows:

I'd say this is proof positive of a great camping trip :)