cabin trip in 3 different state parks - 1/3 done!

let me start by saying that i have no idea why there are so many native clevelanders i know who have never been to hocking hills. it's a three hour drive, what on earth is stopping you?!

now that that's out of the way - when we lived in austin, we would make an annual trip to a beautiful state park called lost maples, rent cabins, make s'mores, the whole deal. my favorite part of the trip was always the 5 mile hike, which was a pretty tough one and always felt like such a great work out when you were done. tucker and i made the mistake of going in may one year...if you don't know texas weather, just know that you shouldn't attempt a strenuous 5 mile hike in may, unless you want to die of dehydration and/or extreme sunburn. i mean, we finished it, but only because we're really stubborn.

so, we wanted to keep our annual tradition going, which is why one of our trio quest goals is to do a cabin trip in 3 different state parks, we are now 1/3 of the way through that goal! we were hoping to find a beautiful hiking spot here in ohio and totally nailed it with hocking hills. or, i guess hocking hills totally nailed it. either way, we know this will become an annual thing for us. we really, really loved the cabin we rented - it sits on 32 acres, has its own private hiking trail, a hot tub, a huge awesome deck, a fire pit, and it was really new and nice, and the hike was so beautiful. since we had luca with us (two and a half years old) and hugo with us (a little over a year old), we definitely didn't get to hike as long or as often as we wanted but that'll make it even better to make this an annual tradition, because it'll only get easier and easier with luca. we chose the "easy" hikes this time around since we had two littles with us - we first went to old man's cave, which was easy even with a toddler on my back, but so beautiful and really, really worth it. and the 2nd hike of the day was at ash cave, which luca walked the whole way (including up 75 stairs!), and was really nice and sandy for him to run around and explore safely.
he spent most of his time looking for dinosaurs, dinosaur eggs, and fossils (you can see him finding "fossils" in a few of the pictures below). and i quickly learned that carrying 34 lbs of toddler on your back while hiking makes up for skipping workouts and eating/drinking like crazy when friends are in town!

here are some of my favorite pictures of the trip: