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This is the second of a series. You can also read about the first part of our trip to Colorado here.

Day 1: Travel
We were out the door about 10:30am to get to the airport. Most of the packing was done the night before, and we had basic checklists for everyone. The main thing was that everyone had a carryon-size luggage plus a small backpack, so we had no checked luggage.

No pictures of the flight, which was unremarkable, which is a good thing. My headphones didn’t work, so I took one of the free headphones compliments of Delta. I chose to watch Uncharted, which finished about 5 minutes before landing, so that was a perfectly-timed movie.

The shuttle bus from Denver airport to the car rental facility seemed to take forever (how big is this airport grounds?), but we eventually made it there. It took them a long while to find our minivan, while we waited in the thin and very hot air. They drove it out to us, soaking wet as they just washed it, and we loaded up and headed out. Traffic was fine, and we made it to Colorado Springs with no trouble.

Here is a shot from the van, our first view of the mountains.

First stop was Costco for much of our food for the week, plus dinner for half the family. The other half of us got dinner from Noodles which was just around the corner from Costco. That was the exit for our rental house, so we drove a few miles to the other side of town and unloaded everything.

After eating and somewhat settling in, we had to go to the local Safeway for the rest of our groceries. Thanks to the convenient pick-up option, I pulled in and someone brought me the groceries. She was from New Jersey, which I learned because she was excited to see Pennsylvania license plates. I burst her bubble when I said it was a rental and we were from Michigan. But she moved to CO about 15 years ago and just loves it.

We got back to the house and the boys made themselves at home. Because the house had a fenced-in yard, the trees had low branches (deer nibble away our branches). So Delta was glad to have a tree he could climb.

Everyone went to bed at a decent time because of jet lag. Then it was evening then morning, the next day.

Day 2:

We had 3 main events planned for this first day, which started early. First up, seeing what Garden of the Gods was about.

GOGVC : Garden of the Gods Visitor Center

The rental house was conveniently located just a few minutes from GoG, so we swung by there to see the main view and to grab some brochures and figure out what trails we wanted to hit later in the week. The visitor center has a nice overlook of the main features.

And here is a closer look at the one rock formation.

Then we left and headed straight to our next event.

USOPM : United State Olympic and Paralympic Museum

The USOPM required us to buy tickets in advance, for a specific time. I chose the opening time, 10am, because I knew we’d be mostly on Michigan time so early stuff wouldn’t feel so early.

They have quite the process down at the USOPM. You get lanyards as your ticket, and it has an RFID unique to you. You can choose to enter your info to the system, so the various stations can greet you by name, or not enter info, in which each station will greet you by your lanyard number.

One of the first things you get to see is a collection of torches from the various Olympics. Those were interesting.

They had a number of interactive items – an archery simulator, a luge simulator, a couple other simulators. Plus a track simulator – it was just a short section of track but they time you and you can compare your statistics to various Olympians. Beta and Delta raced, and they fell a bit short of Jesse Owens’ times.

The architecture of the museum is such that all the exhibit spaces surround a central atrium. You start by going up the elevator to the top (3 or 4 stories up), then you wind your way down to the bottom in a spiral. There aren’t specific floors, everything just flows down gradually via ramps. Anyway, there are various places that are basically little balconies to look into the atrium. And one wall of the atrium is a very tall screen that displays various Olympians.

Near the end of the tour, they had a display covering what happened to the Israeli delegation during the 1972 Munich Olympics.

After that was a wall of medals from each Olympics, then the tour ended at a movie theater, where they showed a 10-minute film about the hopes and dreams and work that goes into becoming an Olympian. Up until going into the movie theater, we were free to walk wherever, go back and forth between exhibits. But the movie theater is the end of the line. Once you go in there, the exit takes you into the gift shop and then you’re back in the atrium and you’re done.

That took us about 2 hours, so it was noon and we were ready for lunch. I should note that I parked in a parking garage more in downtown. It was a few blocks away from the museum but closer to restaurants. Here is the view from the parking garage. That’s the Pioneer Museum in the background.

We didn’t have a plan, other than let’s walk through downtown and see what restaurant looks good. That did not work so well, as people were hungry and it was hot. So we had to stop and look at our phones to see what restaurant we should aim for. Alpha found a breakfast place, and it had some other things around it, so we headed there.

It looked a bit pricey, and didn’t have a bunch of options, and a wait to be seated, so I checked out the deli next door. Just about as pricey, but a lot of options and no wait. So we went there.

The food was good, portions were large, the only drawback was even though there was no wait to be seated, it did take a while for our food to come out. I’m not sure if that’s because we were a party of 6 or if they make everything by hand so it takes a while or what the reason was. But the waitress was attentive and at the end of the meal Delta told them he gave the place 7 stars out of 5.

Then we went back to the house and relaxed for an hour or two before heading over to Some Wife’s cousin’s house.

PPOBR : Pike’s Peak or Bust Rodeo

Our cousin happened to get tickets to the rodeo for our family and his family. So we spent a couple hours at his house, chatting and having dinner, then we went across town to the rodeo.

This was the first night of the rodeo, I think they were there 4 days or so. We got there just as it was starting, so all the official parking was taken and we had to find a neighboorhood and park on the street in front of someone’s house.

We got in, and got settled in our seats. Well, not exactly our seats, as some other people were in our spots. So we sat down nearby and no one ever came to claim them so we stayed there the whole time.

There were several events, from calf roping to bronco riding to barrel racing and finalizing with the bull riding.

Here’s a bucking horse:

And between each event, there was a commercial break. At the rodeo, this means that a couple people ride around the stadium carrying flags of the sponsor.

A big deal was made about the rodeo clown. He was introduced at the beginning of the night and he did a couple of things for entertainment purposes. But he only did his actual rodeo clown deal at the end of the night for the bull riding.

I don’t recall he had to do much, but he was there. He’s like an insurance policy I guess – most of the time you don’t need him but if you do then he had better be there.

It was about 10:00 when we got out of there, so midnight in Michigan, so we went back and slept well.

Then it was evening, then morning the next day.

To Be Continued…

The story of our summer vacation starts a few months before our summer vacation, because that is when I bought the plane tickets.

We had been planning on going to Colorado for our vacation, but that depended on our ability to fly out there for a decent price. I had been watching the fares go up and down and up again, but they eventually got down to something reasonable.

I informed Some Wife that it was time to buy plane tickets, and she had a brilliant scheme. It so happened that the nearby grocery store chain which also includes gas stations (Kroger, in case you’re wondering) was having a promotion for 4-times the fuel points for any gift cards. And they have Delta gift cards. So if we bought a bunch of gift cards, then turn around and use them to buy what we were going to buy anyway, that’s free money in the form of a discount at the fuel pump.

My target price was under $300 per ticket, and there are 6 of us. I didn’t want to cut it too close and leave some money on the gift cards, since we fly once every few years, so we aimed to buy $1500-worth of gift cards.

I wanted to buy quickly, before the price changed again, so that evening we went to the store and bought all the Delta gift cards they had, which was I think 8 of the $100 cards. That was not quite enough, so the next morning Some Wife went to another location and bought their cards. They had some $250 cards, so she didn’t have to buy as many there – 2 of the $100 and 2 of the $250.

I’m surprised we didn’t get flagged by some fraud system, either at the grocery store or credit card company, because in my understanding gift cards are one of the main ways scams and laundering happen. But no one stopped us, so we ended up with $1500 over 12 Delta gift cards, so that night after putting the kids to bed (about 9pm), I got ready to use the cards.

Here is how that went.

When checking the flight costs, I had been watching the dates we wanted – a Saturday to Saturday. The price is still good on those dates, so I select it and then am presented with an array of flight options. I am dismayed to see that the only flight that was the price I wanted was leaving about midnight. I am not about to sign the whole family up to being awake the whole night, as some get grumpy about their sleep.

I normally would have checked with other airlines at this point, but we are locked into Delta. So I have to find a plan B.

It takes a few iterations with the fare calendar, because they don’t let you filter your results by “reasonable time of day” for the flight, but I eventually find one that is Wednesday to Tuesday, a few days ahead of our original schedule. I confirm with Some Wife that the new dates are good, and then I start booking those tickets. Select the flight, make sure there’s room on the plane (some of the other options that are a good price have only 2 or 3 seats left), select 6 tickets, enter all the info for each passenger, get the total, so far so good, and go to the payment page.

This is where the plan kicks in. I grab the first gift card off the pile, scratch off the thing that hides the PIN, and enter the information. Good, $100 off. Next one. I enter its information, and am presented with an error message.

Uh-oh.

I try another card, same problem. It’s March in Michigan, and after sunset, so it is cold. But I am sweating.

I start looking around the FAQs and Help Center and forums and anything else that can give me info about how to use Delta gift cards. I get one definite answer (limit 5 gift cards per transaction) and one suggestion (enter the gift card info at the gift card page of the website, not on the payment page).

The limit of 5 gift cards per transaction is not good news. I cancel the purchase of my 6 tickets, hoping that the system really did release them so A) the flight would be just as open and B) the price wouldn’t increase due to a seemingly suddenly popular flight.

This time, I start in a way that seems backwards. I enter the first card’s info in the part of the website for redeeming gift cards. I half expect that it will tell me I already used that one, but I’m glad to see it takes it, and the next, and the next. I’m doing 4 gift cars per transaction to even them out.

I get the 4 gift cards entered, and I have the expected credit, so I move on to applying that to a flight. I find the same flight for the same price, and I book 2 tickets – Some Wife and the youngest child, don’t want both parents on one flight in case I can’t get the kids on the same flight. There’s about a $50 shortfall, which is good as I don’t want anything left on the gift cards. I put that on the credit card, and the booking is completed.

One pair of tickets down, two to go. My sweating has subsided, but I realize I should have opened and scratched off all the gift cards before starting the purchasing process.

Next 4 cards, same flight, me and Gamma. The older two kids are 16 and 18 so they can handle being on a separate flight if need be.

Final 4 cards, and Alpha and Beta get on the same flight too.

At this point, it is midnight. Three hours just to buy some airplane tickets. But I got everyone on the same flight and for the right price, so it was okay.

The plan did work – we got 6000 fuel points, which meant $1 off per gallon for our next 6 fill-ups. At about 15 gallons per fill-up, that’s $90 total we saved by going through the hassle.

To Be Continued…

This is the second of a two-part series. You can also read about the first part of our trip to Hocking Hills here.

Day 2 Continued:
After lunch, we drove over a bit to the most impressive feature of Hocking Hills – Ash Cave.

Ash Cave

This is the other picture you are most likely to see if you look for pictures of HH without specifying which area.

This is the approach to the cave:

And this is what it looks like from the bottom, just past the waterfall:

The trail itself was nothing of note – it’s more a means to get to the waterfall. Unlike other trails like Old Man Cave which maintained interest the whole time.

Fire Tower

The fire tower was not on my original agenda, but it’s there and the kids wanted to see it, so we did.

It is just a tall tower but on top of a ridge for the park rangers to go up and look around for forest fires. Climb at your own risk, and no more than 6 people at a time.

The cabin at the top was locked – you could climb up the stairs until you got to the bottom of the cabin, which is just higher than the treetops so it was windier up there.

I wouldn’t say it was fun, but it was memorable. A few members of our crew did not go up.

At this point, we were done with our planned hikes, but there was still more time in the day. My brother had heard about another cave that is not one of the main features and not on the popular trail maps that you get at various places, so we figured we give it a try.

State Rockclimbing and Rappelling Area
I don’t know the official name of this place, but the sign at the road said “State Rockclimbing and Rappelling Area” so that’s what I’m putting here.

Our goal was a certain cave, and we pulled into a parking lot that was where we heard it should be. We all got out of our vehicles, and while my brother and I discussed expected hiking time, our wives started chatting with a couple of other women, one of whom had a professional-looking camera.

I figured they found someone they knew, but when they waved us over we found out that our hiking plans had changed. They happened to find the lady who had written the book on various day hikes in Hocking Hills. Her name was Mary Reed and she told us that the trail to the cave we wanted was a horse trail, so it was very muddy because horses are rough on the trails, and we were better off going across the street. And I think she was right. Since she was nice enough to give us that advice, I’ll return the favor and tell you all to go buy her book “Hocking Hills Day Hikes”.

We were parked in the right spot, we just needed to go south from the parking lot instead of north.

Shortly after crossing the road, the path split (more like a T). We went right first, to visit the waterfall. We had seen a few other waterfalls this day, but this wasn’t supposed to be a long hike so we tried it.

The path started out rather similar to things we have back in Michigan.

Then it turned into more caves and slopes

And above that were cliffs with many nooks and crannies for them to go through:

It turned out the kids had the most fun on this hike because there was so much more to traverse. Not being an official tourist stop, the trail was less structured, so the kids went off exploring. The adults, not wanting to sprain anything, decided not to scamble up the slopes after them, so we stayed near the path and chatted while still listening for the noises of the children. Mostly “Hey, over here!” or “Look at this!”.

We finally had to yell for them that we were moving on to the waterfall.

The waterfall wasn’t much. Mostly a jumble of rocks. Here’s the view from the rocks at the waterfall, but looking back to the trail.

Balancing Rock
The we headed back toward the parking lot. At the split where we came in, a few people headed back to the vehicles but most of us continued on (as if we had turned left at the beginning instead of right). This is the path to Balancing Rock.

Two notes on the trail to Balancing Rock. One: it goes along private property, so you’re walking along a backyard or two. Don’t worry, you’re in the right spot, just stay on your side of the fence. And two: whatever length Mary Reed says the hike is, it feels double that because of the terrain and elevation changes. The waterfall path was mostly flat, but this one you’re hiking uphill most of the way there.

It wasn’t that impressive most of the way there. It was scenic but nothing worth stopping and photographing. But near the end it got a lot better.

This part of the trail reminded me of our trip to Nelson Ledges.

And then the path puts you right next to the top of Balancing Rock.

You could, as the kids did, scramble through some fissures to get to the base of Balancing Rock. I was busy taking various pictures of the top of Balancing Rock so I didn’t make it down there before everyone started leaving.

That was it for hiking for the day. We went back to the rental house, had dinner, read books and watched TV until bedtime. And it was evening, then morning the next day.

Day 3:
The agenda for day 3 was not so solid. We had seen most of the things on day 2, and we were starting to grow weary of hiking to waterfalls. Nevertheless, we set off to Conkles Hollow.

Conkles Hollow

Conkles Hollow has a very nice paved trail…

…for the first half of the trail. You don’t get to see the waterfall at the end if you’re in a wheelchair, but you can see views like this:

After going down the unpaved path the rest of the way, we found ourselves at the actual hollow. The sides of the gorge gradually converged together and that’s where the small waterfall was.

In that area, there are various ledges and rock formations that are accessible to the kids, so they took advantage of that.

There was also a path along the top of the gorge, but that was much longer and we didn’t feel doing that.

Since the first two days were packed, we though it would be good to take a break. So we left Conkles Hollow and went to eat at the Olde Dutch Restaurant in Logan. We chose that because it was a buffet with a decent price. There’s a gift shop attached to it, so we wandered around there while waiting to be seated. One of the kids wondered why people had southern accents, I explained that we are closer to Kentucky and West Virginia than we are to Michigan, so it makes sense the dialect would be different.

My review of Olde Dutch Restaurant: it’s fine. The food was good, prices were decent. The only warning would be dessert. Desserts are not buffet-style, you get to order one dessert item at the end of your meal. They have a lot of pies, or you can choose ice cream. I chose blackberry pie, I think I got blueberry instead, and it was not worth it. I should have gone for chocolate cream pie or maybe just ice cream, like the rest of the family did.

Then we went back to the cabin and had a relaxing afternoon. I got to finish reading the books I brought, and otherwise did nothing. But after a while, doing nothing in a small cabin starting wearing on people, so I rounded everyone into the van for one last hike, this time to Cedar Falls.

Cedar Falls

Cedar Falls was fairly deserted, since we were there around dinner time. We ended up parking near the falls, so there wasn’t much of a hike to get this view:

But it was about 100 steps down.

Then, since it took us 20 minutes to drive to Cedar Falls but only 5 minutes to walk to the waterfall, we decided to go on a little walk on the trail that loops around the area. It also was a short trail, so it didn’t take too long, but it had a variety of interesting features.

There’s wasn’t any one thing that was spectacular on the trail, just a smattering of different things.

Then, since it was 80 degrees outside (making a lot more icicles fall this day), we decided to stop at the Dairy Queen on the way back to the cabin. Us and about half of Logan, it seemed. We eventually got up to the window, placed our order, and we got the new guy who had just started. He was nervous about having to tip our Blizzards upside down as he had never done that before (he was that new). But we got our stuff and headaed back to the cabin to start packing a bit.

Then it was evening, then morning the next day.

Day 4:
Day 4 was simple: eat breakfast, pack up, clean, and leave. We were out the door well before checkout time of 11:00. We stopped for lunch at some friends’ house on the north side of Columbus, then made it home before dinner.

The End.

Like many Michiganders, we headed south for our spring break.

Unlike many Michiganders, we stopped heading south after only one state and we spent our week in Ohio.

Our friends spent their days on the beach. Our kids had fun seeing who could grab the biggest icicle off the rock ledges.

Our destination was Hocking Hills. We found a VRBO in Logan and set out from there each morning for some trails. For those of you not familiar with this part of Ohio, you are best off picturing West Virginia for the terrain.

Day 1:
We couldn’t check in until 4:00, so we didn’t need to leave that early. It was 10:00 or so when we left.

Normally, when we drive somewhere, we stop at around the 2.5 hour mark for a break. Use the bathroom, stretch the legs, etc. So we usually have lunch around the 2 hour mark. On this day, Some Wife handed out the lunches we had packed, everyone ate as we drove, then we scouted for the upcoming rest stops. I took a survey and no one needed to stop, so the plan was to drive until someone needed to stop.

We ended up going the whole 4+ hours without stopping. I think that’s the first time we’ve ever done that. Turning point for family vacations right there.

We got there early enough so we did everything else before checking into the house: visit the visitors’ center, tour the pencil sharpener museum (right next to the center, and only about 10’x15′ – one of the tinier musea around), hike Rock House, hike Rock Bridge, pick up groceries for the week (hooray for curbside pickup), and grab a carryout pizza (hooray for no cooking the first evening).

Rock House
We chose Rock House for the first afternoon because it was close. Rock House is like a cave with many large openings.

I’ll start with a picture of a tree that looks like a snail, which is on the trail to the actual Rock House

Next is a couple of the kids clambering around the path to Rock House. Notice the icicles. In many areas the path led you under icicles, and we witnessed several of them falling.

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This is continuation of last week’s blog post about the start of our spring break trip to Texas.

Now on to the chronological recap:

Day 4: Cave Day
There a number of caves around the San Antonio area. There was a big tourist-trap one that I avoided due to cost reasons, and I ended up picking Cascade Caverns.

It’s a smaller affair, so if you like a low-key tourist event, I’d recommend this one. The lady sold us our tickets, then locked up the building so she could be our tour guide, then went back to the building after the tour and we bought souvenirs from her. And we were the only people on the tour.

Here are some photos. First up, the gift shop:

We had a few minutes between the ticket purchase and the start of the tour, so we went on a short (1/2 mile?) hike in their trails on the grounds. Not much notable on that hike, other than some informative signs about native fauna. Plus we saw cactus growing wild. That’s something of interest to a Michigander who sees cactus only in special buildings.

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Like most people in Michigan this year, we took advantage of spring break to leave Michigan for warmer pastures and to find out what it’s like to dine in at restaurants.

Unlike most people in Michigan this year, we went to Texas, not Florida.

Since it was only a week, we chose to fly rather than drive to Texas. Our destination was a VRBO house with a pool. Staying for a week, and with kids that can be loud, we figured renting a house was the way to go. It had 3 bedrooms and 2 baths, which is a good layout for a family of 6. Plus a kitchen, dining room, living room, washer/dryer, and back patio and pool. Better features, less crowded, and a similar price compared to staying in a hotel.

Now on to the chronological recap:

Day 1: Travel Day
We left our home around 10:00am, flew to Austin, got a rental car, and headed out to San Antonio. Direct flight to Austin, that’s why we didn’t fly to San Antonio. The rental car process was easier than I remember. The only mishap was that the Alamo and National counters were manned by only one person so there was only one line, but they didn’t tell you that until you went through the ropes course and got to the front of the empty Alamo line, only to be sent to the back of the National line. How hard would it have been to put a sign at the entrance to the Alamo line saying “Go over there to National” or something?

Anyway, we arrived to San Antonio just before dinner their time. We stopped at the Costco just outside SA to get some supplies for the week, plus a Costco pizza for dinner. The only real traffic we had was getting into SA.

All in all though, I’d say Texans weren’t bad drivers. I didn’t have a preconceived notion of Texas drivers, but for the most part they were competent. Which is above average if you check in other states.
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Continued from last week

Day 8

This was a travel day. A few hours through the UP and then the upper LP. A lot of 2-lane highways and not much of the freeways, which made for some scenery. I was doing most of the driving, so I didn’t get to take many photos of the scenery.

Except for this one: our rest stop before the Mackinac Bridge:

Followed closely by this one:

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