Alum Creek - Nov. 4-6, 2016

I wanted to spend my birthday camping (and drinking wine), so we went to Alum Creek State Park near Columbus, OH.  We had fantastic weather!  Not too hot and not too cold.  Perfect fall weather.  This state park is huge.  All the campsites are kinda tucked into the trees.  The little heater and hanger my dad made for us worked great at night.

On Saturday, we went to Soine Vineyards, Wyandotte Winery, On the Border Mexican Restaurant, an Blend of Seven Winery.  The first two wineries were great, but the third one we didn't particularly like because they just order juice from someone else to make their wine.  They're basically making giant batches of the wine kits we buy to make at home.

Unfortunately for us, Ohio State had a night game on Saturday, so there were lots of campsites watching that on outdoor TVs and we had to listen to that silly school dominate their game :P  We also got to meet a fellow T@Gger a couple campsites down from us!

Kiser Lake - Sept. 23-25, 2016

Another short weekend trip.  This time to Kiser Lake State Park.  There were no plumbed toilets which was fine, but there were also no showers which was not okay.  We ended up taking "showers" using the 5 gallon bucket haha.  There was a nice trail around the lake, and it was peaceful to sit and read while Ryan fished.

Keeping up with tradition, we also visited a winery while on a camping trip.  It's amazing how many wineries are in Ohio, and how good everyone's wines are.  We went to Old Mason Winery which had some delicious wine, but we could only buy bottles/glasses instead of flights because of the live music going on.

Hocking Hills - July 14-17, 2016

We took an extended weekend trip to Hocking Hills (near Logan, OH) for a little 3 year anniversary celebration.  Hocking Hills is absolutely beautiful.  There's so many things to do: canoeing/kayaking, hiking, zip lines, fishing, etc.  We stayed at Hocking River RV Park which was great.  It was right on the river, so we had a nice view, and we got to watch people canoe and kayak from our campsite.

We went canoeing with Hocking Hills Adventures on Friday.  It was about 7 miles in 4 hours.  We got to canoe right by our camper which was pretty cool.

Waiting for the bus to pick us up

Then we went to the visitor center to pick up some hiking maps and found the weirdest museum.  There's a pencil sharpener museum.  It doesn't have just fancy pencil sharpeners either.  It has all the regular pencil sharpeners you'd buy in the back-to-school section in every color imaginable.

Then we went out to eat at Millstone BBQ.  So good!  Of course, we had to visit the nearby winery too.  Sensing a trend with our trips? lol

Pictures of our campsite

Ryan made this cool flag holder.

On Saturday, we went hiking.  First we went to Old Man's Cave park which is the most visited park within Hocking Hills State Park. 

Ignoring TLC and chasing waterfalls anyway

Devil's Bathtub

We went back to the campsite to eat lunch and play with Bella for a bit.   Then we went to Conkle's Hollow Nature Preserve.  It's a gorge with two trails: an upper rim trail and a trail through the gorge.  The upper rim trail has 200 ft drop-offs in some places!  It was beautiful up there.

All in all, it was  great trip.  I highly recommend going to Hocking Hills.  It's one of the most beautiful places I've ever been.