by guest blogger Bonnie Spencer   Part 1, Part 3 October 23, 2015 Day 5: Horseman’s Group Camp to Access Ramp at Spring Valley-Paintersville Road (10.6 trail miles) After two zero days, we were back in Caesar Creek State Park. My ankle was still swollen, but the pain wasn’t bad enough to keep me off of it. We began hiking at 10:15, taking the Moonlight Vista Bridle Trail from Horseman’s Camp to get back to the BT. After a mile on the BT, we reached the second saddle dam and saw another red-blazed trail to …

by guest blogger Bonnie Spencer   Part 2, Part 3 October 13, 2015 I must have been out of my mind when I said I would go with CW on his 150-mile Buckeye Trail circuit hike this year. Last year Jim and George backpacked the Wilderness Loop with him. This year there wasn’t anyone who could spare the time needed to cover such a distance. CW changed his original plan of continuing from the Wilderness Loop and decided to do a segment of the trail closer to home and largely on bike trails. I think …

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6 August 26, 2015 The Final Leg When I was still in school, Dad took me to see the giant coal shovels operating in eastern Ohio. They had names like Silver Spade, GEM (Giant Earth Mover or Giant Excavating Machine) of Egypt, and Mountaineer, all of them now extinct. The AEP (American Electric Power) has reclaimed 60,000 acres that were strip-mined by these and other shovels into an outdoor recreation area known as ReCreation Land. They planted over 63 million trees, created hundreds of …

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 7 August 16, 2015 Hot Meals and Cold Nights Halloween night I slept like a barn owl after a high-mileage night of hunting. I awoke early, feeling a little ashamed that I had fallen asleep and missed the Great Pumpkin. Of course, he might have cancelled his appearance due to the weather. But the sleet and wind had subsided, and it looked as if we had dodged one more weather bullet. George, Jim, and I all wondered how long our good fortune would last. …

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 6, Part 7 July 11, 2015 On to the Second Leg After making some purchases in Walmart, Jim, George, and I followed the aromatic smells to the McDonald’s corner of the building. We stood and gawked at the menu a couple of minutes. Turned out it was the same as every other McDonald’s. Good. That would make it easy. Our ordering completed, we staked out a table away from the other diners, assuming they would not like cheesy-smelling hikers with their Quarter Pounders. The skies had …

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7 April 12, 2015 A Nineteen-Mile Test of My Hiking Legs The sky over Ring Mill the night before had been crystal clear, great for watching the space shuttle make its way across the vast, starry expanse.  But that same clear sky had also drawn the coveted warm air upward, causing us to spend an uncomfortably cold night. Just after sunrise we layered up and ate breakfast in the shelter, grateful for the roof that separated us from a thick layer of frost. Steaming …