Birthday Do-Over

Not only was last week my birthday, but it was Markham's as well. Mine is the 7th, his is the 9th. 8 years and 363 days apart :] Anyway, the reason I didn't mention his in my previous post is that it didn't go nearly as well as mine did. I mostly blame myself. Lack of planning. We seemed to keep turning up to places he wanted to go right after they closed. Lynlee was a nightmare because she didn't get a nap. I should've known that the D1 National T&F Championships were on and that he'd want to watch them. It was a real bummer of a day. So, after much planning and consideration, I declared this past Wednesday his Birthday Do-Over Day. I arranged for my dear friend Heidi to babysit Lynlee while Markham and I drove over to Ohio to do his favorite hike and then eat at his favorite restaurant. This time around, the day went smoothly and was ever so successful :] Here are some pictures from the hike:

we went hiking in this metropark called Hell Hollow. You start out walking this trail for about a quarter mile where it dead ends at the top of a cliff with a very long switchback ahead of you. Then when you get to bottom of all the stairs, you come to this river. I'm pretty sure this is where most people turn around and go back up the mountain and finish their hike. Not for us. One of our very favorite things is to hike the river. Which basically means we hop in and walk down the river bed. The reason it's so awesome is because once you get down the river about a quarter mile or so you turn a corner and there are just sheer cliffs on either side of you. It's absolutely breathtaking. 

The river was at its very lowest we've ever seen it. Which made for easy hiking, and warm water. I was worried going into the hike that the water would be absolutely freezing since we usually hike in August but with it being that low, the sun heat it up pretty nicely.

Little tiny waterfall that's usually flowing a lot more than that.

If you can see through the ripples, there's a school of small fish.

We've had some pretty big storms since hiking Hell Hollow last so there were a lot of fallen trees we had to get across.

See? SO low. All of the rock should be under water. Some parts were still about 3 or 4 feet deep and those are usually 8-10 feet deep. But it was fun because we got to hike through parts we'd never been since the water was low enough to get through.

It only got a little deeper than this. A couple of times we had to hike up our shorts.

Markham trying to get the rocks out of his Keens. Looks like he's falling.

This tree actually wasn't fallen, it was growing out of the side of the hill. Crazy.

Yeah we got up on the side of the bank and went around these. They weren't quite as easy to navigate.

This part was SO muddy. Most of the river is just slate rock so it's flat and hard which makes it easy to walk through but this part was slippery and you can see how cloudy the water is where I just walked.

another small waterfall that should just be raging and is barely trinkling 

biggest waterfall and still barely any water

sliding down the log

it was a little scary. there was nothing to grip and hard to balance

safe

you can see the bedrock really well in this picture. mostly easy to walk on except for the mossy stuff which is uber slippery

Another small waterfall

boot shaped rock!

So all of that black stuff that looks like moss? Baby leeches. ICK!!

this is usually our stopping point before hiking back up the river. It's this waterfall that's off to the left of the river that runs down into it. It's usually gushing but it was mostly dried up.

Markham down by the river. You have to hike up the side and then wade across this little pool to get to the waterfall

you can see the water barely coming down at the top.

these little leaves were everywhere and they were so cool! they all had these little orange "bleeding hearts" on them. I have no idea what kind of plant they came from but so cool.

spikey log!

stairway of misery. 5 switchbacks. this was just the beginning. we were dying by the end and my calves were sore the next day. yikes.

the top by the stairs.

you can see down to the river from the top. SO gorgeous, although I used my iphone for all the pictures so they're not that great of quality.

The drive to Ohio is about 1 1/2 and then our hike took about two hours. then it was 45 minutes into Cleveland to go to Melt. Melt is this super amazing grilled cheese restaurant. Sounds ridiculous, I know, but they have they make their sandwiches with this insanely big texas toast, a big layer of cheese, and then anything from pizza rolls to BBQ chicken to lasagna. They're huge and amazing and I could only finish half my sandwhich and then like 5 fries. SO good. Then for dessert we had the Wookie's Revenge. It's made up of chocolate and banana bread pudding stuffed with bacon crumbles and chunks of Reese's peanut butter cups. Then topped with vanilla ice cream, whipped cream, toasted coconut, chocolate and peanut butter sauce, and more bacon crumbles. Sounds weird right? Well, we took a risk, and it paid off. SO good!! You can't even really taste the bacon flavor, it just kind of makes it salty. And I love salty and sweet. It's my favorite. So yummy. After all was said and done we got back home right about 9 o clock, just in time to get Lynlee home and put her to bed. It was a really great day and I know Markham had a really great time.