Everybody knows that once a holiday has hit, all of the remnant holiday gear goes on sale. Our purchase was completely not pre-meditated, and probably not driven by the digression in my last post.
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| Best $2 ever spent. ha ha. Poor Max. |
Digression concludes.
And now for some autumn color, eh?
With my new job and D's new position and other family responsibilities, we elected to spend a weekend away from all the stress and chores and all. So we whisked Bobby dog away to Hocking Hills.
We rented a cabin with Old Man's Cave Chalets, and were really pleased with the place. It was peaceful and quiet, and despite the cold and rain, we spent a lot of time outdoors in what has ended up to be one of my favorite memories of this year.
Ash Cave was just beautiful, and the scenery had us talking about Thoreau (of whom I am no fan), and Emerson (of whom I am);
about the scary horror movie Cabin in the Woods, which, I mis-remembered to be the horror movie about the flesh-eating disease that was written by a guy who suddenly and horrifyingly caught a flesh-eating disease that almost, well, ate him (*it was Cabin Fever, my bad);
and also about fortifying a secluded cave-type dwelling in Native American times/in the event of a zombie apocalypse.
Obvious downside in that the valley backs into the huge cave and cliff walls.
Well, it would be good in that you know the direction of enemy approach, because there is only one way in to this valley that leads to the cave. The cliff walls at Ash Cave are so sheer that your enemies would be daft to try scaling down them to surprise your forces on the sides. Spelunking attacks weren't a successful old-timey battle tactic to my knowledge. Still, you have no plan B. There's no escape.
The cave itself would have been excellent protection against the elements, plus a fresh water source.
Isolated for sure. Great tree cover. Terrible acoustics for keeping a low profile though. Bobby was bound and determined to leap off of the cliff to play with the dogs barking in the cave below. Voices and bird calls (and dog barks) bounce from rock to rock down into the cave and from the cave out of the ravine. Nature's own fun little echo chamber.
And at one point we heard kids whistling and hooting and whooping from the other side of the ravine, and D hooted back at them like a monkey. This continued for awhile, much to Bobby's utter glee. Here was a primate symphony echoing all around us.
And when we finally hiked down into the cave, we found that some poor people had been trying to get married in the cave, their ceremony surrounded by inescapable and untraceable monkey calls.
But I bet the wedding photos will be nice.
So there you have it. Hocking Hills. Not so far from Cincy.
A beautiful way to spend a day.
