Tales & Trails of a Traveling Wiseguy

Ohio Waterfalls Travelog #24
Dublin, OH · Tue, 21 Apr 2026. 3:30pm

It was a short drive from our previous stop, Hayden Run Falls, over to another city park for Millikin Falls. Picking the right trailhead is important as this park abuts a quarry that I think is closing down. A lot of the trails route you along the sides of the quarry for a mile or so, which really isn't that scenic. We picked the trailhead that gave us a view down over the falls within 100m of walking.



From this overlook it's a short but steep trail down to the pool at the base of the falls.



Notice my slight clothes change relative to the Hayden Run Falls hike just before this. I've ditched the sweater-vest and rolled up the sleeves on my long sleeve shirt. It's getting warm today! After being in the mid- to upper 60s at noon it's now about 76°. Don't get me wrong; this is great weather. I just dressed for it to be a few notches cooler.



I picked my way around the rocks and gravel bar opposite the falls to get a seat around the right side. I think this is the better view.



I'm carrying around my super-wide angle lens today, I figured I might as well make photos with it— and share them, too!

After spending a while at these falls near the trailhead we debated how much further in the park to go. We walked out to the next junction, assessed how the rest of this park is really just land reclaimed from a huge quarry operation, and decided to seek greener pastures (and the next waterfall!) at the next park.

Ohio Waterfalls Travelog #20
Bremen, OH · Mon, 20 Apr 2026. 12:30pm

This morning we checked out of our hotel in Hitlerville and drove around, yet-again, toward Logan. Probably we should have just picked a hotel in Logan but this was cheaper. We had one hike firmly in mind, Rockstall Falls. After that, we weren't sure. But we started with Rockstall.



Just finding this little nature preserve took some doing. It's in a very rural area. There are no signs for it until you're in the little parking lot. And it's privately owned, not a public park, so it's not well indexed on maps. Fortunately the private owners allow hiking without a permit.

The trek starts out as a pleasant, if somewhat boring, walk through the woods. There's a loop trail so you can see different things, making it slightly less boring. The point of the hike, though, isn't to see the loop. It's to see the creek and grotto at the bottom of the hill.



Stairs lead down into a small gorge at the bottom of the hill. The falls isn't right there; you have to walk upstream a bit along the creek bed. It's not hard. And after 100 meters or so you reach the falls at the back of the canyon.

It's possible that during the really wet season there are more falls than just this one. Some of the hikers' notes on AllTrails state there are three falls. We only saw this one. And yes, we looked. As you can see from the trickle of the falls in these photos, we are not here during the really wet season.



We lingered in the grotto for a while, sitting on a fallen tree across from the falls. We had the place almost entirely to ourselves. When we arrived at the parking lot nobody else was there. After we were at the falls for a while, one small group, a pair of hikers and their dogs, appeared above the lip of the little gorge. While they were trying to find the stairs to descend we decided our time was up and we should head on to the next thing, whatever that might be.

As we returned to our car I said to Hawk, "Here's a wild idea: how about we go to Wheeling, West Virginia, next?"

To my surprise she said, "Okay," with a happy shrug.

That means... ROAD TRIP!

Stay tuned....

Ohio Waterfalls Travelog #17
Hocking Hills State Park · Sun, 19 Apr 2026. 12pm

It's time to catch up on delayed blogs from our Ohio trip earlier this week! This is the first of probably seven in the backlog.

Our hiking yesterday (Saturday) was a matter of, "How many hikes can we do before it starts to rain?" The answer was three. But the answer was also and it's gloomy the whole time. While we were doing the hikes I thought to myself, "Some of these dry-ish waterfalls would look better right after the rain vs. before it." Well, today that opportunity came around! In addition to raining yesterday afternoon it rained again before dawn this morning. So this morning (Sunday) we went back to one of yesterday's dry-ish falls to see it again in the wet!



First up today: Ash Cave. Recall from yesterday, there's a short, easy trail up the bottom of the gorge. It leads straight to this huge cave. Yes, this is a "cave" in Ohio terminology. I'd call it more of a hollow. But it is darn large, at over 90' tall.



And yes, a creek pours over the lip of the cave/hollow, creating a beautiful 90' waterfall. It's flowing a bit more today than yesterday though not by much. I guess either a prolonged rain is needed to make it fuller, or one needs to catch it sooner after the rain stops.



Does this picture, above, look similar to the one before it? That's kind of on purpose. I made the latter picture with my Fujifilm X-T3 interchangeable lens camera, the former with the built-in camera on my iPhone 16 Pro. What's the difference? I welcome you to make your own observations; here are a few of mine.

• It used to be that my Fuji would take a way better picture, much richer in color, than my iPhone. That still happens in some situations, but fewer and fewer with each new generation of camera in the iPhone.


• One big difference in favor of the Fuji is that I have strong creative control over the picture captured by the camera. I used a neutral density lens filter to capture a long-exposure picture that creates that silky, motion-blur effect on the falling water (latter pic). The tradeoff of purposefully allowing motion blur, though, is that the trees in the background get blurry because they're waving in the breeze.


• One area where modern cellphone cameras excel is in computational photography. They use their powerful onboard processors to capture and combine multiple exposures at different gain levels to create a single image with superior dynamic range. You can see that in how the shadows of the cave are brighter and the sky overhead is blue, not washed-out white, in the iPhone image.

There are other pluses and minuses for each camera. These are the few that apply in a scene like this.

Then there's this picture:



As we climbed around the trail that leads behind the falls and up the other side of the cave, we stopped to rest a while at a bench. While Hawk sat for her rest, I stood the whole time for mine, making pictures. Yes, photography is how I rest when I'm hiking. 😂 I thought that I'd get the best pics from this vantage point with my Fuji camera, but instead the one I liked best, which I'm showing here, is from my iPhone. Why? The computational photography = dynamic range advantage won.

From here, instead of going back down to the gorge trail and retracing our steps out, we continued up around the ridge of the canyon. From this point we were over half way up the climb already so we figured why not finish it. 🤣 Alas, while it was a different stretch of trail, the views were not as good from the tree-lined ridge as they were from the creek below.

Ohio Waterfalls Travelog #12
Hocking Hills State Park · Sat, 18 Apr 2026. 1pm

After hiking Cedar Creek Falls first thing today ("first" thing 🤣) we hopped back in the car and backtracked a few miles to the trailhead for Ash Cave. Cedar was highest on our combined priority list so we hiked it first in our race against the rains coming later today. Ash Cave is next highest so we're doing it now.

The trail to Ash Cave is easy, less than 1/2 mile I think, and very flat and paved the whole way. A person could do it with a an assistive device. Well, right up to the viewpoint in the cave, anyway. The trail goes on from there in the dirt/sand. But here's the view from more or less the end of the sidewalk:



I hopped off the paved part of the trail and followed it through the sand underneath the cover of the cave.



The waterfall here is quite a sight. I photographed it from a number of different angles, including up and along the trail that ascends around the back of the cave. I think the best vantage was here, at the bottom.

The trail around the back of the cave climbs all the way to the rim, where one of those Ohio one-way trails connects back to the parking lot. The gorge trail is bidirectional, though, and Hawk and I wanted to save our legs for more hikes today, so we retraced our steps back out on the flat, paved trail.

Speaking of more hikes today, so far the weather's holding out. We've finished two hikes before it starts raining. We're headed to a third one now... will we finish number three before we get poured on?

Ohio Waterfalls Travelog #10
Circleville · Fri, 17 Apr 2026. 8pm

We decided to call it a day, early. We're back at the hotel now, after stopping by a supermarket to buy some dinner to eat in the room. I just ate some totally "Meh" sushi while Hawk microwaved some pizza rolls. We're sharing a raspberry danish for dessert. That's all we wanted after leave the park today. I mean, really I wanted better food that supermarket sushi. I just didn't want to go out for dinner.

To recap what we did today: We had a great hike in Old Man's Gorge. After the first stretch of it I was feeling pretty optimistic about how much hiking I could do today. Even though I was tired after the second half of the gorge I was feeling like, "Huh, with a bit of rest before the next hike, and these long April days, I could do maybe four hikes today. We could be done with this park in a day and a half instead of four days!" Then we hiked Whispering Cave and I was less gung-ho about doing four hikes. Maybe one more, I figured. Maybe.

Hawk was already done by that point, but I wheedled her into agreeing we could at least drive to the next trail, Cedar Falls, and see how we feel. I got out of the car at trailhead, walked around a bit, and realized, "Nope. I'm done for the day." I mean, I'm sure I could have forced myself to do it, but I would've been miserable the whole way. And overdoing it today would only subtract from what I can do tomorrow.

Yes, our energy levels waxed and waned today. What's going on behind the scenes is that we're both dealing with being out of shape and figuring out what our current limits are. Hawk is recovering from surgery on both feet, in September and again in January. This is our first major hiking trip since then. Neither of us have done any serious hiking since August. Hawk has done a lot of walking inside to regain her strength but I've been a couch potato.

And for me, beyond just not having hiked more than a mile or two at a time in 8 months, I'm figuring out what the impacts of being on Ozempic are. Would the stomach cramps it tends to give a person limit my ability to hike? Friends had made it sound like when you're on a GLP-1 you need to be next to a toilet, constantly. Like, if it's not coming out one end it's sure to come out the other. 🤢

Thankfully I have not been cramping from Ozempic. My 2/3rds approach to eating, plus eating sensibly (prioritizing protein and fiber over carbohydrates), have allowed me to stay reasonably active. The only thing that's slowing me down is being out of shape from these 8 months of not really hiking. And that's why, despite feeling really optimistic about how much I could hike around midday today, I felt pooped out after Whispering Cave.

But hey, we have four days to do all the hikes here. That'll be plenty. We planned it that way.

Ohio Waterfalls Travelog #7
Hocking Hills State Park · Fri, 17 Apr 2026. 2pm

We had a great hike today in the gorge at Hocking Hills State Park. After hiking the upper half of the main gorge area (previous blog) we continued on to the lower half. A bailout trail would've let us cut short the hike without doing this other half, but given there are at least three waterfalls worth seeing in the lower half, WTF would anyone want to do that?



This is Lower Falls in the gorge. Like Upper Falls (see previous blog) it pours down into a nice bowl surrounded on three sides by rock walls. It's probably a nice swimming hole. We didn't hop in because we're not the sort to say, "Ooh, a beautiful body of fresh water, let's muddy it up so others can't appreciate its beauty!" I'm thankful that others around us felt the same way... or perhaps felt the temperature was a tad too cool to go swimming. I enjoyed the chance to appreciate seeing the water without the distraction of kids jumping in the water and throwing sticks and stones and trying to murder each other.

Speaking of weather, it's beautiful today. The temperature's in the low 80s, perhaps a bit cooler down here in the gorge by the creek. The next few days look to be rainy and cooler, so we're definitely enjoying it while we can.



At Lower Falls we started hiking a trail up and out of the canyon. The creek trail does continue further downstream, but there's only one other thing nearby we'd want to see. ...And as we got partway up this climb we realized that the side trail we want for it is a smidge further downstream. So we doubled back down these stairs to the creek... though not before appreciating the scene above us.

Yes, that's water pouring over the lip of the canyon way above us. It's about as much as a bathroom shower. I imagine after a rainstorm it flows a lot heavier.

Yes², the canyon rim overhangs this area quite a bit. The trail goes behind the waterfall by at least 20'.

Yes³, that's a spiral staircase at the right edge of the frame. The canyon wall is so high and vertical here (actually it's concave) that the park built a metal staircase to climb us out.

But back to that falls we didn't want to miss....



A bit further down the main creek in the gorge a side creek pours in. There's a metal bridge over the water but no signs. The trail up the tributary is obscured at first, like it hasn't been maintained in a while— intentionally so. We figured where to go based on orienteering skill.

As we climbed the side canyon the trail emerged. It climbed steeply up steps carved into the natural rock. Debris and damage showed that, indeed, this area hasn't been maintained for a while. We scrambled past some fallen rocks and found ourselves right up close to Broken Rock Falls. Yes, the name is quite apropos. And now it comes with more broken rock in every hike. 🤣

From here we continued around a small loop trail mid-way up the canyon wall back toward the cave in the middle picture. It was cool having the perspective of the steep rock wall right next to us. And once we climbed that spiral staircase that wasn't the only oddity on the way out.... There was also a staircase some 60 steps high that ascended through a tunnel! That's one area where I really appreciated that a lot of the trails in this park are one-way and clearly (and repeatedly) marked as such. Navigating tight squeezes like these stairs would be an absolute zoo if people were pushing past each other in both directions.

Hawk and I have finished planning our first "real" retirement trip. I quote real because while we have taken all of two trips since I retired just over a month ago, neither of them really took advantage of the fact I'm retired

• Our trip to visit her parents last week we planned before I retired, before I was 100% certain of being retired by that point. It fit within the normal working stiff schedule of weekend to weekend. I figured I'd take a week off for it if I was still working. I had no other time off planned since the start of the year.


• Our wildflower trip earlier in March was only a weekend-sized trip. We could have done it while still employed, going on weekend. The only difference being retired made was that we traveled Wed-Fri instead of Fri-Sun, enjoying fewer crowds at the parks we visited.

Anyway, my first real post-retirement trip is planned now, for later this month. And it's to... Ohio.



Yes, the Ohio that's best summed up by this classic clip (above) from The Simpsons.

So, what's in Ohio? I mean, that we care about? Waterfalls! There are waterfalls in Ohio, and that's why we're going.

I was inspired a few weeks ago when I clicked through a news article with a title like, "Here are 5 places to visit in the Midwest that aren't soul-suckingly bleak!" One of them is a state park outside of Columbus, Ohio, with a bunch of waterfalls. We used that as the kernel of an idea to find several days worth of fun hiking we can do in the region and booked a trip for 6 days.

We fly to Columbus next week Thursday.

Canada travelog #27
Back at the hotel · Thu, 28 Aug 2025. 4pm.

Today we visited one waterfalls, Felker's Falls. Well, we tried to visit others, but they were dry. Even though it's been raining today. Yeah, this is like the worst combination of conditions for waterfall hikes: the waterfalls are dry while we get soaked. 👎

Felker's Falls is in a city park in Hamilton. It's such a low key area. It's behind a children's playground in a suburban neighborhood. We parked by the trashcans, walked past the jungle gym, and to the hiking trails at the back.

"Are we in the right place?" we wondered. Then we saw fences everywhere and knew we were. 🤣



We followed once fenced path a short distance around the falls where the view was poor then doubled back to hike another fenced path on the other side.

We briefly entertained the question Can we hike to the bottom? It would be too steep going down the side of the canyon from above. The maps and a description on AllTrails imply we could partly hike an established trail, partly rock-hop up the creek from the bottom; but the weather was darkening and these falls just weren't big enough to be worth it. We decided to content ourselves with this view.



It's good we decided to be content here, because on our (short) walk back to the car it started to rain. And I don't just mean a drizzle or misty rain. We were dressed for that. No, it started to pour. We got to the car, hung our rain jackets to dry over our seat backs, and drove on to the next location.

I don't even remember now what the name of the next falls we visited was. It was out past Devil's Punchbowl— or, as I've been calling it since visiting there on Monday, Devil's Dustbowl. It was dry. We decided to pack it in for the day, ate lunch down the hill in town, then drove back out to the hotel.

Now we're back at the hotel. We figure we'll chill here for the rest of the day. We've kind of run out of things to do since dry balls cut short our list of activities. We're petered out at this point.

At least there's one more falls we can visit tomorrow before we go home, when the weather should be better again. Hawk put that falls near the bottom of the list because it charges a hefty entrance fee and has a reservation system. But we're scraping bottom here, so it's what's left on the list.

Canada travelog #24
Niagara Falls, ON · Wed, 27 Aug 2025. 11:30am.

I mentioned in my previous blog about Niagara Falls that one of my fondest memories from visiting when I was a kid was riding the Maid of the Mist boat tour down in the canyon. When Hawk and I visited her long-lost relatives in Toronto earlier in the week, and we told them about our plans to visit waterfalls in Ontario, they all told us we shouldn't miss the Maid of the Mist tour.

Funny little detail: the Maid of the Mist is a tour that operates from the US side of the border. There's an almost identical tour that operates from the Canadian side, where we are this week. It just doesn't have the catchy name "Maid of the Mist". It actually has a pretty stupid name, like "Niagara City Cruise", or something like that. I mean, WTF? It's not a city cruise. There's no city down here in the canyon. Just enormous waterfalls to look up at!

Well, either way, it was at the top of our list. We booked tickets a few nights ago for the cruise today.



One thing I remember about the Maid of the Mist cruise decades ago is that the tour operator gave us heavy-duty rain slickers, the kind you see ocean going fishermen wearing in old-timey pictures. Well, those expensive slickers are no more. Now they give passengers cheap but colorful trash bags. And no, it's not any better on the US side than here in Canada. The Americans just have blue trash bags.

As the boat neared the first falls and started to pick up a lot of spray I realized that my fancy camera wasn't going to do well. I packed it away under my trash bag poncho and relied on my iPhone for the rest of the trip. The good news is that means it was easy to record video of the falls.



Here's a 3 minute montage of the highlights of the cruise. We first go past the American side of the falls, then into the Horseshoe Falls which are split by the international border, then back past the American Falls as we return to dock.

As cheap as the trash bags were compared to the old-timey rain slickers of years ago, they got the job done. They kept our torsos dry as we got pounded with lots of spray for a few minutes. Our legs and feet took a good drenching, but that was okay as we wore quick-drying hiking clothes knowing we'd get sprayed by the mist, and it was warm out in the middle of the day anyway.

Canada travelog #21
Back at the hotel · Tue, 26 Aug 2025. 10:30pm.

Today finished on a good note, hiking-wise. We hiked two two-fers, for a total of 4 waterfalls: Albion and Buttermilk Falls, then Sherman Falls and Tiffany Falls. All was not good, though, as at the start of the day we had a problem with dry balls. And it wasn't just Ball's Falls that were dry but several others we had on our list to visit, too. While driving around during the day we decided it'd make sense to cut our visit to Canada short as we'll run out of things we want to do well before Sunday.

Tonight, after dinner and a soak in the hot tub, while Hawk was snoozing (she hasn't slept well recently) I rebooked our flights and shortened our hotel stay and car rental. The plan now is we'll go home Friday night instead of Sunday night.

What's the Cost?

Hawk agreed to leaving early provided the cost of rebooking plans wasn't significant. Cost was a major factor for me, too. If going home early is just a cost sink, we could figure out something to do in Ontario. The numbers work out such that, at worst, it's a wash, dollar-wise— but we still get two days of time back. And, best case, we save a few hundred bucks. Here's the math on the costs:

• Departing hotel 2 days earlier: $327 savings


• Returning rental car 2 days earlier: $104 savings


• Figuring the cost of rebooking flights is a bit tougher as I bought one on cash and one on points. Mine, paid with cash, cost $260 more than my original flight. Hawk's flight I got for 15,000 points, with a travel credit of $271 net she can use within the next 11 months.


• If Hawk can manage to use that credit before it expires, it's a great exchange for the 15,000 points we paid. $271 ÷ 15,000 = 1.8 cents per point (cpp), much better than the average value of 1.1cpp I value UA miles at.

Curiously, the numbers work out to a wash if Hawk's travel credit expires unused 11 months from now. If she can use it, then $271 is what we'll have saved by going home 2 days early.