Tales & Trails of a Traveling Wiseguy

Ohio Waterfalls Travelog #18
Rockbridge, OH · Sun, 19 Apr 2026. 3pm

After hiking Ash Cave this morning— for the second time in two days!— we drove north through Hocking Hills State Park to Rock Bridge State Natural Preserve. But first, we stopped for lunch in West Logan for lunch. Yes, we drove right past the pencil sharpener museum along SR 664. We even stopped next to it to grab a fresh map from the visitors center.

I lingered over lunch. What do I want to do today? I fretted. Which was really, what do I have energy for today. I was feeling out of sorts, partly because of medication, but partly also because of lack of motivation today. Though the latter may be driven by the former. 🤷‍♂️ Soon enough I decided, "Fuck it, I'm going hiking," and we drove to Rock Bridge.



The main point of interest on this hike is, well, the thing the park is named for, a natural rock bridge. It's about 10' wide and 60' long.

Geologically, this rock is the familiar Black Hand Sandstone that forms the bedrock layer all around this region. This bridge started out as a cave, similar to Ash Cave or Whispering Cave. A lower sub-layer of the sandstone eroded away faster than the sturdier layer above it, creating an alcove. Eventually this cave got fairly deep... and then fissures in the upper layer caused part of the "roof" to crumble and fall down. The part that didn't crumble is now the bridge.



The trail leads around underneath the near side of the bridge. It's nice in here, being down in this grotto. Though the combination of the dripping water coming over the lip of the cave, plus the now overcast sky above, gives everything a dour mood.

We stayed here for a while, enjoying the fact that we had the place to ourselves. That's a little surprising since it's still a weekend, though I figure what's happening is this little park is waaay less popular with visitors than the well known Hocking Hills nearby. We saw maybe 8 people in 2-3 small groups on the way in and maybe 5 more people on the way out.

As we've walked back to the car now we've decided to call it a day already. We'll blame it on the weather. The sunny sky we enjoyed this morning has turned overcast. And a strong breeze has picked up. Plus, it's chilly today compared to the beautiful weather two days ago. There were points on this hike where I worried the three light layers I'd worn wouldn't be enough. Tomorrow's going to be even colder... but at least it'll be sunny.

North Coast Roadtrip travelog #4
Sue-meg State Park · Sat, 26 Jul 2025, 12:30pm

Saturday morning we drove from Garberville up past Eureka and Arcata on the north coast to Agate Beach. Agate Beach is a perennial favorite of Hawk's because it's a great place to troll for rocks, particularly agates. Visiting this beach to go rock-hounding is one of the centerpieces of this weekend trip. And it's a thing we've been meaning to do for... over a year now. It took us this long to get around to it. (We finally made concrete plans when I threw a fit earlier in the week about too many weekends lolling around at home.)



A visit to Agate Beach starts with a walk down from the cliffs. Fortunately there's a good trail here, with switchbacks at the top and stairs at the bottom. This is part of a state park, the recently renamed Sue-meg State Park. It was called Patrick's Point when we visited here a few times in the past. California State Parks renamed it in 2021 to the traditional name used by the Hurok people.



Agate Beach has always seemed like a quiet, remote area. Not so much today, though. Today the day-use parking lot was nearly full, and not just with people who came to visit the beach in general but people who came specifically for rock-hounding.



It was obvious most people were here for rock-hounding because they were all carrying specially designed shovels for picking rocks on the beach. It's like someone posted on Facebook, "OMG rockhounding at agate beach is the bestest thing EVAR!" and helpfully included a link to their shovel-selling page on Etsy. Because everyone, like dozens of people, had basically the same shovel. 🤣

Well, Hawk was doing it old-school, picking rocks by hand. We started near the bottom of the trail, where we'd always found so many things on past visits, but gradually migrated further out on the beach as the center area was getting pretty well picked-over by all the other rock-hounds.



On previous trips Hawk came home with quite a haul from Agate Beach. Today she was more selective a took only a handful of rocks. Partly that's because she's become more knowledgeable of the kind of rocks on the beach. Most of the stones here are basalt. Most of the white ones, which people commonly mistake for agate, are quartz. In fact many people proudly showed Hawk zip-lock bags full of stones they'd picked up with their shovels— oddly, identically sized zip-lock bags they picked up with their identically designed shovels— only for Hawk to tell them that all but 1 or 2 of the pieces in their bags were quartz.

I found a lot of pretty stones in olive green and orange-red colors, many with banded shades. Hawk identified these as jasper. She already has a lot of jasper, so we left those stones for others to find.

On previous trips I found a lot of sand dollars out here. There were none today. I don't know if that's a seasonality thing or if they had already been scooped up by all the other beachcombers.

Oregon Cascades Travelog #15
Bend, OR - Thu, 3 Jul 2025, 8:30pm

We're back from another fun day of vacation in the Oregon Cascades. Though today we weren't really in the Oregon Cascades.... Instead we headed east from Bend into the high desert volcanic scrub land. Along the way we explored mountains of glass, hiked a volcanic fissure in the ground... oh, and saw about 100 hawks.

We saw the first few dozen hawks as we were driving east on US 20 out of Bend toward Glass Butte. The hawks were perched on power line poles along the side of the highway. At first we didn't see any raptors. Then we saw one or two. "Huh, I'm surprised there's food out here for them," I thought to myself. The we started seeing them every half mile. There must be plenty of food for them! I've only seen this density of birds of prey in the wild twice before.

We arrived in the area of the Glass Buttes and turned off the highway. From there we'd see only dirt and gravel roads for the next few hours. Yay, choosing to drive our own car (4x4 SUV) instead of flying and renting a car! We drove around to sites specifically where Hawk could rock-hound for different varieties of obsidian. She filled a canvas tote bag.

After rock-hounding and eating a trail lunch in the car we drove back out to the highway and backtracked a bit to the west before leaving the highway again to traverse gravel and dirt roads for most of the next 50 miles to get to Crack-in-the-Ground, an interesting volcanic fissure. From there we parked the car at the trail head, strapped on our packs, and hiked over 2 miles, much of it in narrow a chasm up to 70 feet deep. As with yesterday's summary I'm skipping over sharing photos (and video!) for now to keep from falling too far behind in writing about this trip.

Oh, and we at least a dozen more hawks on the drive to Crack-in-the-Ground. Plus another dozen more as we drove to the remote little town of Christmas Valley afterwards for a light dinner. Yes, it was already after 6pm! Then there were lots more hawks as we drove west toward Fort Rock and Hole in the Ground.

Yes, there's a Hole in the Ground in addition to Crack-in-the-Ground. We didn't get to see the hole, though, because it was raining by the time we got there. It was raining— pouring, really, with occasional lightning in the sky— as we passed by Fort Rock, as well. These both would've been fun to see. Alas, maybe on a return trip to Bend a few years from now!

Update, 11pm: the rain and lightning hit us in Bend later in the evening, spoiling yet another part of our plans for the day. Having gotten back to our hotel around 8:30pm we looked forward to soaking in the hot tub before it closes at 10. Well, at 9:15 or so when we were ready to go, WHOOSH! rain started to fall. We thought maybe we'd wait it out but then CRACK! lightning. And the rain lasted for 2 hours. It's a bummer we didn't get to use the hot tub. My sore muscles would've appreciated it.

Non-Vegas Vegas Weekend Travelog #3
Lake Mead National Recreation Area - Sat, 15 Feb 2025, 12:15pm

What's there to do in Las Vegas if you don't like gambling, shows, or fancy restaurants? There's hiking! And while it's not in Las Vegas it's also not far out of it.

Saturday morning we drove out to the Lake Mead National Recreation Area to the trailhead for Owl Canyon. Although we got a later start on the day than I wanted to I knew there was plenty of time left in the day— especially if this hike was all we wanted to do. And even at the trailhead I could tell we were in for an enjoyable time.



I mean, anytime a sign warns the trail is tough... that's generally code for, "Really fun for even moderately experienced hkers." It's scare-words for "Weak-sauce city folk STAY OUT." 🤣



The trail starts with a steep descent down from the the top of the bluff where the parking area and some picnic tables are. Ugh, that's going to be not-fun as the last part of the trail when we're coming back tired. At least it's not a huge climb out. I don't think it's more than about 100' ascent back up.



Across the wash at the bottom of the canyon the trail climbs over another bluff. This one's not so vertical as the one the trail starts from. It's prettier, though, with orange-red rocks and views across to the Las Vegas Wash.

Hawk and I took a detour to explore the top of the bluff instead of following the trail that quickly descended from a saddle point. Curiously there are lots of seashells up here.

How did all the shells get here? Our first thought was that birds dropped them after fishing the waters of the lake. But quickly we saw that there are thousands of shells up here. That's too many for birds dropping them after eating. This spot must've been underwater at some point in the past. ...But the water level in Lake Mead, which you can see in the pic above, looks to be at least 100' below us. How long ago would it have been high enough to cover this ground? It can't have been too many years ago as otherwise there wouldn't be so many shells in such good condition due to weathering. Also, the Hoover Dam that created Lake Mead only finished construction in 1935.



We walked along the bluff top, exploring the views from different angles. The views up here were just so beautiful we kept going instead of doubling back, hoping there might be an exit down the far side. Plus, it was special being up here because while we saw occasional small groups of hikers on the trail below, nobody else thought to explore up here atop this butte. Hooray, solitude!

Update: I learned in visiting the Hoover Dam the following day that the last time the lake level rose to a high of 1,225' elevation above sea level in 1983. The bluff we were standing on was at about 1,200' elevation. So possibly the seashells we were seeing atop this bluff have sat there undisturbed for 40 years. Now that is some solitude!



In this panoramic photo (above) you can see the trail winding around beneath the bluffs. In the distance is the actual Owl Canyon. We'll hike a loop that has us going up another canyon and then coming down Owl Canyon, exiting it in this area. Then we'll hike over the saddle point halfway up this bluff and climb the first bluff back up to the trailhead. But that could be hours from now, and now is now....



On the far side of the bluff we found this odd mineral deposit. It looks like snow! It's actually gypsum. We scrambled over a bunch of large gypsum boulders to climb down the bluff. We had to be careful on them as gypsum is a soft mineral. If we stepped on a thin deposit, it could crumble under our feet and send us tumbling.

We got down the rough backside of the bluff okay. Then we bushwhacked through a bunch of dead bushes in the wash where the lake level had been higher recently, and climbed back up the slope on the far side to rejoin the trail.

To be continued!

Update: There's a lot more ahead! Continue for now with part 2.

Panama Travelog #25
La Chorrera, Panama - Fri, 27 Dec 2024. 12pm.

Here's another blog from my Panama trip that I pushed the side so that my blogging wouldn't get too badly backlogged. Well, once I pushed it to the side it, along with several others, got stuck there for a few weeks. I'm going to try unwinding at least a few of them now.

After spending 4 days in El Valle de Antón we're driving back to Panama City. We'll spend 3 days there before flying home. The drive to Panama City would be about 130km if we were driving the shortest route, but we're taking slight side trips to visit two waterfalls along the way. The first of these is in La Chorrera... which is Spanish for The Waterfall. ...And that's the name of the town, BTW. The waterfall itself is named El Chorro, which is Spanish for The Stream. 🤷



Getting to the falls was quite the little adventure. And by "adventure" I mean it really tried my patience. ...No, it wasn't a tough hike. The view from the edge of the falls above was a stroll of 25 meters from where we parked the car. It was getting through La Chorrera that was crazy-making. Driving highways in Panama is relatively easy— aside from the poor signage for turns/exits— but driving in city-center traffic is like something out of a Mad Max movie. Anyway, I've written about that elsehwere, so I'll get back to the waterfalls here.



From the top of the falls we found an overgrown path leading down to the bottom. We picked our way over the slippery rocks near the falls for a better view.

You can see the interesting hexagonal pattern in the rocks we're standing on/next to at the near left. It's columnar basalt. Here's a wider angle that shows more of the rocks:



There were a few other cars of people at the top of the trail as we visited. Curiously nobody else came down to the bottom of the falls like we did, so we had the place to ourselves for the 15 minutes we spent down here.

West Virginia Travelog #3
New River Gorge National Park - Sat, 16 Sep 2023. 3:30pm

Well, we did it. We got to the the US's newest national park only... *checks watch*... 33 months after it was designated. One of our bucket lists is to visit every one of the (now) 63 national parks. As of today at New River Gorge National Park in West Virginia we are at 51 [loud tock sound] 52.

We didn't come here just to tick the box (or tock the clock), of course. We came here to enjoy doing the things we enjoy doing at parks. In beauty we walk!



Our first visit in the park this afternoon was to Sandstone Falls. It's at the south end of the sprawling park, near the surprisingly well kept little town of Hinton. This area is up-river from the rest of the park. Here the New River hasn't carved as deep a gorge through the Allegheny Mountains. "New River" is a horrible misnomer, BTW. This river is literally older than the mountains around it... and these mountains are old!



The trail here is easy; there's a boardwalk guiding visitors out partway across the river. But, as is often the case, we found the best views by stepping off the boardwalk and picking our way across the rocks.

In beauty we walk.

UPDATE: More ahead in part 2!

Our waterfalls-hiking agenda on Monday in the Oregon Cascades was a bit of a jumble. I had several browser tables open on my computer to various falls I wanted to hike, and a few sections bookmarked the old-fashioned way (i.e., with a scrap of paper) in Smedley's waterfall book. As we went through the day, having hiked 3 trails already, we were discussing tradeoffs on which ones to add to the list or skip.

"Watson Falls, hmm, I don't know," I said. Then I checked the notes. "272 feet tall, third highest falls in Oregon." Fuck no, we're not skipping that!

The trek to the base of Watson Falls is short but steep. Short, as in less than half a mile. Steep, as in it rises 300 feet in that short distance. But then views like this open up...



...and you forget about your aching legs and just focus on finding stable footing while not taking your eyes off the falls.

The trail proper turns away just behind where I'm standing. Yes, everyone in the frame, including yours truly taking the picture, is off trail. But how could we not?



A little ways up the social trail is a flat-ish rock to sit on. We sat down for a bit and enjoyed the lush undergrowth and gentle cascade in the foreground with the horsetail of Watson Falls swishing in the background. ...Yes, it really was swishing. Breeze in the canyon blew the water back and forth, left and right.



After a bit we picked our way back to the official trail. I mentioned it bent away at that point.... It climbs higher through a pair of switchbacks to a vantage point that's about one-third up the height of the falls. Oddly this vista was very uncrowded compared to the bottom of the falls. It's like everybody had energy to climb the slippery rocks at the bottom and make yoga poses for their Instagram accounts, but nobody had energy or was curious where the rest of the trail went.

BTW, the rock on the cliff here is also basalt, similar to the rock face at Toketee Falls. Here the columnar structure isn't so pronounced. A kiosk at the trailhead explains that this volcanic basalt filled the canyon sometime between 25,000 - 100,000 years ago when a volcano near the top of the pass erupted.

Grand Cayman Travelog #16
Hell - Thu, 18 May 2023, 12:30pm

This morning we picked up a rental car so we could do some self-guided touring today and tomorrow. But where would we go? One of the tour coordinators we'd chatted amiably with the past few days, who was still at the hotel because now he's working with another company that's running a president's club (there are signs), offered a suggestion when he saw us walking through the lobby to our car.

"Make sure you go to Hell," he suggested.

"Yeah, that's our plan," I answered. "We're going to Hell now. Then we're going to lunch."



Hell is a spot a few miles north of our hotel, on the northwest end of the island. It's an officially named place in the Cayman Islands. How official? There a Hell, CI post office here.

But what draws people here isn't just the post office, with its ability to send postcards officially date-stamped "HELL". That is only part of the allure. 😅 It's the jagged rocks in this area that gave it name that people come to see. Thus we pulled our car into the small parking lot aside a few families and minibuses to see it ourselves.



Don't remove Hell rocks! ...What are they going to do, though? Send you to hell? You're already there. 😂



So, what is Hell? Hell in the Cayman Islands is a small field of very jagged rocks. They look a bit like volcanic rock, which is one explanation for how the place got its name. A British official visiting the island long ago is said to have exclaimed, "My God, this is what Hell must look like!"

Actually the rock is limestone and dolomite. It was eroded into these jagged shapes not by wind or rain but by being eaten away by algae. The algae dissolves the calcium in limestone (limestone is calcium carbonated, CaCO3) leaving mostly dolomite. Scientifically this process is called phyto-karstification.

After touring the relatively small field of rocks we walked back out to the gift shops and post office. We bought a few postcards with pictures of Hell and mailed them to religious relatives so they'd be date-canceled as officially from Hell. 🔥😈🤣

Saturday morning we got up early to visit Sierra Vista Open Space in the mountains east of San Jose. Good news: We had a great hike overlooking the city. Bad news: It was kind of short. We were back at the car by 9:15. What to do? How about a two-fer! We refilled our water bottles at the car and went hiking on a trail on the other side of the road.



This is the Aquila Trail. At times in the past we've hiked it it's been a riot of a wildflowers. Today, not so much. In fact pretty much not at all. Wildflowers bloom when there's good rain followed by a few weeks of warm weather. This season we've had tons of rain— so the first key ingredient is there— but not yet the warm weather. Maybe in another few weeks these hillsides will look totally different.



The Aquila Trail is a short loop, about 1.2 miles around. Together with our hiking on the Kestrel Trail earlier we're hiking maybe 3 miles total. On the one hand that's not much. On the other hand it's pretty good for getting a hike in before errands and lunch.



Though there aren't wildflowers out today we enjoy the Aquila Trail for its remote feel. With vistas like this we can imagine we're well into the wilderness... even thought Silicon Valley with its millions of people is just over our shoulder.



On today's trek we noticed something we've overlooked before: fossils! Some of the rocks up here bear the imprint of what looks like organisms from an ancient sea floor.

Like I said, the hikes were both short. We were back at the car by 10am. The parking lot was already full, and rangers were aggressively turning people away. I'm glad we arrived at 8:15. We'll have to come early again when we return for wildflower season!

5 Days in the Desert travelog #20
Yermo, CA - Mon, 26 Dec 2022, 2pm

Today is shaping up to be as much about the driving as the hiking. But that's okay because the driving is purposefully scenic. The old Native American prayer, In Beauty I Walk, doesn't mean literally walking. It means journeying, as in the journey through life. Sometimes that journey is behind the wheel.

We finished up driving the Mojave Road through Afton Canyon by exiting at Basin Road, about 8 miles east of where we entered. The canyon, with its steep, colorful walls, had petered out by that point anyway. There were no more amazing side canyons like Spooky Canyon or the way nicer unnamed canyon. But it's still interesting to drive through a river. Here's a quick video:


Once back on dry, paved land we headed back toward Barstow, not to call it a day yet but merely to get lunch closer to town before heading back out across the desert. We ate at EddieWorld in Yermo. Yes, it's a bit tourist-trappy, but their food's pretty good and they have the biggest selection of stuffed animals I've ever seen under one roof. We bought a pizza, a chicken fingers basket, a couple of drinks, and a couple of sheep.

Up next: we'll head out east again to drive/hike at Pisgah Crater.