Living Our Dream

Good Eats in Amish Country

Berlin, OH - Events of Wednesday, June 19 to Sunday, June 23, 2013

A big reason we come to the Amish Country in Ohio is for the food. In addition to eating out at our favorite restaurant, Der Dutchman, we like to go to the many markets where you can buy foods like cheese, meats, snacks, baked goods, etc. to eat at home. One such place is Walnut Creek Cheese. Their name says cheese, but that's only part of what they offer. They also have a deli, a butcher shop, a bakery, an ice cream parlor and a lunch counter. There is also a large selection of bulk foods as well as a smattering of more common grocery items. In the same building complex there are other shops that sell jellies and kitchenware.

We headed to Walnut Creek Cheese on Wednesday because Margery needed some spices for a recipe she was planning for dinner that evening.

Walnut Creek Cheese

Amish people shop for groceries at Walmart because the food is economically priced (the Amish tend to be frugal), but they shop at Walnut Creek Cheese because Walnut Creek sells good, country-style food as well as a huge selection of bulk foods.

Amish buggies at Walnut Creek Cheese

Because we have successfully lost enough weight to get down to our targets, we can cheat sometimes; but we still have to be careful not to eat too much of the wrong things.  Although we occasionally eat candy in small quantities, buying it in bulk the way they sell it at Walnut Creek Cheese is a no-no. They do, however, have a small selection of no-sugar-added candy. Paul likes gummy peach rings.

Candy - a no-no for our low carb-low sugar diet

Cheese has no carbs, so it is okay for our low carb-low sugar diet, and Walnut Creek has a lot of different cheeses to choose from. In the next photo, Paul is trying to decide what kind of cheese curds to get. Cheese curds are semi-finished cheese. They are the solid lumps of cheese that are left when the whey (liquid) is pressed out following the cheese-making process. Finished cheese is made from curds that are compressed into blocks or wheels and then aged. Cheese curds tend to be a little less creamy than finished cheese, but they make good snacks because they are bite-size lumps and don't need to be cut up like finished cheese.

Paul checking out cheddar cheese curds

Walnut Creek Cheese has a nice selection of ice cream that is made right there on the premises, but we passed on that, too. We do have ice cream frequently, but it is the no-sugar-added variety. We didn't see any no-sugar-added ice cream at Walnut Creek Cheese.

Ice cream - another no-no

Margery picked up some bulk spices. There are almost two whole aisles of bulk items including herbs, spices, dried fruit, flavorings and mixes like cake mixes, dry soup mixes and various flavors of gelatin. There are also snacks, rice, pasta and more available in bulk packages.

Margery checking out bulk spices

Then there are the baked goods. The chocolate cupcakes with cream cheese filling looked delicious, but again, we passed.

Baked goods - yet another no-no

We ended up getting some red-pepper cheese curds, a few grapes, a little sliced ham for sandwiches, a small bag of no-sugar-added gummy peach candies, some taco seasoning for the recipe Margery was planning for dinner that night plus a few other bulk spices.

One reason we were disciplined at Walnut Creek Cheese to not be tempted by all the goodies is we were planning to go to Der Dutchman on Friday. We had already been there for the breakfast buffet, and now we were planning to go for lupper.

Der Dutchman has lots of comfort food served as individual meals or family style. Sandwiches range in price from about $7 to $9, and dinners cost about $8 to $14. There is also a salad bar for $8 (available starting at 11:00 every day) and a hot buffet for $14 (available starting at 3:00 on Mondays through Thursdays) that also includes the salad bar.

We both had the salad bar. It includes a wide variety of salad fixin's plus things like cole slaw, potato salad, chicken salad, ham salad, pasta salad, three bean salad, apple sauce, pickled beets, two kinds of hard-boiled eggs, cottage cheese, fruit salad, and much more.

View of the salad fixin's

View of the end of the salad bar featuring the other salad items

We have been experimenting with using the camera feature of our new smartphone, so after lupper, we went outside to take a couple of photos of the picturesque red barn in the valley behind Der Dutchman.

Smartphone photo of the view behind Der Dutchman

The camera on the smartphone, while not quite as good or as versatile as either our stand-alone Nikon or Canon cameras, is a lot better than the camera on our old flip phone. The smartphone camera did a pretty decent job in spite of the fact we didn't quite know what we were doing.

After our photo session, we headed back to the motor home and relaxed for the rest of the evening and over the weekend. We had more plans for the following week, so stay tuned.

Father's Day Weekend

Berlin, OH - Events of Friday, June 14 to Sunday, June 16, 2013

Several of our RVing friends have smartphones, and we came to realize smartphones have lots of interesting, fun and useful features. Not only that, but the hinge of our old flip phone was cracked. Therefore, a few months ago, we began toying with moving into the 21st century and getting a smartphone since we knew our eligibility date for getting a new phone was coming up.

On Friday, we headed to a Verizon Store in Canton to check out smartphones. We ended up getting a Samsung Galaxy S3, which the same model our daughter, Lora, has. We picked the S3 because of the price and the fact Lora is very happy with hers. We were also hoping she would be able to help us get up to speed if we had the same model.

After we left the Verizon Store, we stopped at Sam's Club to pick up a couple of items. We knew it would be fairly late in the afternoon when we finished getting the new phone picked out and set up at Verizon and when we finished our other errands. We also knew we would be hungry, so Margery did some research ahead of time and found good reviews for the Lucky Star Chinese Restaurant in Hartville, which isn't too far from the Verizon Store and Sam's Club in Canton.

Lucky Star is in a small strip mall.

Lucky Star

They have lunch specials that include a main dish and fried rice for around $6, combos that add an egg roll for around $8 and dinners that are $8 to around $10. We both got a General Tso's Chicken combo.

Paul with his General Tso's Chicken combo

The rice, egg rolls and General Tso's Chicken were all good, although Paul thought the batter coating on the chicken was a little too thick. After our lupper of General Tso's Chicken, we headed back to the motor home to play with our new smartphone. We started by downloading the user's manual from the Verizon website. Wow, do we have a lot to learn!

On Saturday, we took a break from playing with the phone and went to the Holmes County Flea Market. The market is located less than a mile down the road from the campground.

Holmes County Flea Market

The market has mostly new merchandise, and most of that has a country theme. We had fun looking around.

Margery checks out an artificial tree

Lora and J. Michael invited us to Bahama Breeze for Father's Day, so on Sunday morning, we hopped in the car and headed for Pittsburgh. We got an early start because we wanted to stop and see Mike and Pat, our Pittsburgh friends who went full-time 1½ years ago and who spent winters at Blueberry Hill in Bushnell, FL. Mike had a stroke back in April while they were at Escapee Headquarters in Livingston, TX. The Escapees provided a lot of support helping Pat get the fifth wheel relocated to Houston where Mike was hospitalized. They returned to Pittsburgh the beginning of June where Mike continues his rehabilitation. It was wonderful to see them and to see the progress Mike has made. We're bummed we forgot to get a picture. 

We arrived at Lora and J. Michael's about 1 p.m. We had time to chat and for a one-on-one tutorial on using our new phone. We also took Freeway with us, and he had a great time playing with Lora and J. Michael's boxers, Gunnar and Fiona.

Lora gave us lots of pointers on how to set up the phone the way we wanted and to on how to download and organize apps. From reading the manual on Friday and Saturday, we were also able learn enough to teach Lora a thing or two. Well okay, we didn't actually teach her. We mentioned we read about a couple of things the phone could do that Lora didn't know about. She figured out how to do them and then showed us.

Later in the afternoon, we headed to Bahama Breeze for lupper.

Bahama Breeze

The mall where Bahama Breeze is located also has quite a few other restaurants. At 4:30 in the afternoon, we could see people outside all of them waiting for tables. Normally, the restaurants don't get that crowded until 5:30 or 6:00, but lots of people must have wanted to celebrate Father's Day. Fortunately, the wait at Bahama Breeze wasn't long - only about 15 minutes.

Lora had shrimp linguine, J. Michael had jerk chicken pasta, Margery had almond crusted talapia, and Paul had grilled chicken with cilantro crema. We finished off the meal by sharing a chocolate island for dessert. Everything was delish!

Margery, Paul, Lora and J. Michael at Bahama Breeze

We always love going to Bahama Breeze. Not only is the food great, but the Caribbean atmosphere makes us feel like we've been on a mini-vacation. It was an even bigger bonus to be able to share Father's Day with Lora and J. Michael.

We had about a two-hour drive back to Ohio after lupper - not an easy task on a full stomach. We relaxed the rest of the evening with a little TV; but we'll be out and about again soon, so look for our next post.

Bronston, KY to Berlin, OH

Berlin, OH - Events of Tuesday, June 11 to Thursday, June 13, 2013

Tuesday and Wednesday were travel days. We pulled out of Lake Cumberland RV Park around 9:30 a.m. on Tuesday headed for Ohio's Amish Country in Holmes County, OH.

It was a drive of about 3½ hours to our overnight stop in Cincinnati. FMCA has a mail forwarding service, and they have a campground at their mail facility located just outside Cincinnati. There are about 15 full hookup sites with 30/50-amp electric and another 18 or 20 sites with water and electric only lined up along the edge of a parking lot. There is also free Wi-Fi that was pretty fast.

The campground is for members only, which means everyone there was in a motor home. There is no charge for the first two nights, and additional nights are only $20.

Unfortunately, all the sites are back-ins so we had to unhook the toad for a one-night stop. However, that was a small inconvenience considering we got a paved, relatively spacious, full-hookup campsite with 50-amp electric and Wi-Fi all for free.

Our site at the FMCA campground

View of several adjacent sites

Only about half the sites were taken the night we were there. However, FMCA chapters do occasionally have rallies at the FMCA campground, so they recommend calling before you stop just to be sure there is no special event going on.

We pulled off our site shortly after 9:00 on Thursday morning, hooked up the toad and hit the road headed for the second leg of our journey to Berlin, OH. With about a 4-hour drive including a fuel stop, we pulled into Scenic Hills RV Park in Berlin shortly after 1:00 p.m.

We have stayed at Scenic Hills many times before. It has full hookups with some sites that are 20/30 amps only and some that are 20/30/50 amps. About a third of the sites are pull-throughs. Scenic Hills does not have a bathhouse, so the campground is for self-contained RVs only. Nightly rates at Scenic Hills are $35 with discounts for various lengths of stay of three nights or more.

The roads are semi-paved (tar and chips), and the sites are gravel. Some sites are a little closer together than others, but they all have well-manicured grass between them.

Our site at Scenic Hills

View down the road from our site

There is free Wi-Fi which is usually fairly fast. Although there are transmitters in several locations in the campground, the Wi-Fi coverage has a few holes in it. On this stop, our site is at the far end of the lower level and our Wi-Fi signal was so weak we occasionally got dumped off. Verizon Broadband has recently been upgraded to 4G in the area, but that signal is also weak. We are going to be at Scenic Hills for several weeks, and a site in our preferred location at the other end of the lower level where the Wi-Fi signal is very strong wasn't available for the first part of our stay. However, a site there will be available a little later, and we will probably move when it opens up.

One of our favorite things about Amish Country is the food. For one thing, we love the breakfast buffet at Der Dutchman Restaurant in nearby Walnut Creek, and we didn't waste any time getting there. We headed there first thing Thursday morning.

Der Dutchman

The breakfast buffet has scrambled eggs, breakfast casserole, two kinds of potatoes, two kinds of sausage, bacon, sausage gravy and biscuits, fried mush, mini pancakes, French toast sticks, cereal (hot and cold), fresh fruit, frozen fruit slush, pudding, yogurt and more. In the picture below, Paul got Margery in mid-chew. She couldn't wait to dig in!

Margery enjoying breakfast buffet at Der Dutchman

After breakfast, we headed to Winesburg Meats to pick up some beef snack sticks (smoked beef sticks similar to Slim Jims). The snack sticks are another Amish Country favorite.

Then we drove the back roads to the Walmart in nearby Millersburg to pick up a few groceries. This is the only Walmart we know of that has a shed to provide shelter from the weather for parked horses and buggies. The two buggies parked there had the horses unhitched, so they belonged to employees rather than to customers.

Shelter for horses and buggies at Walmart in Millersburg

From Walmart, we made our way back to the motor home. There was rain in the morning with a continued chance of rain all day. It was also cool and windy, so we just hung out in the motor home the rest of the day. We'll be relaxing quite a bit during our stay in Berlin; but we will still get out do a little sightseeing, and we're sure to have more good food, so stay tuned.

Daniel Boone National Forest Part II: Yahoo Falls, Yahoo Arch and Cumberland Falls

Bronston, KY - Events of Saturday, June 8 to Monday, June 10, 2013

After our sightseeing was cut short by the rain on Wednesday, it was cloudy with a greater chance of rain on Thursday. Therefore, we just hung around the motor home all day. We only got a few sprinkles, but it was a good excuse to goof off.

Friday morning was cloudy with another chance of rain, so we headed to Walmart to restock our supply of groceries. Paul took advantage of the clearing sky in the afternoon to clean all the motor home windows inside and out and to clean the screens. It was long overdue.

The weather forecast was predicting a mixture of clouds and sun with only a slight chance of rain for Saturday followed by mostly cloudy and a 60% chance of rain on Sunday and Monday. Since Saturday was the best weather of the next few days, that's the day we headed south to the Daniel Boone National Forest to pick up our sightseeing where we left off when it rained on Wednesday.

Our first stop was Yahoo Falls, which is located in the Big South Fork National Recreation Area of the National Forest. The trailhead for Yahoo Falls isn't quite as remote as the one for Split Bow Arch, but the last mile or so was still a one-lane gravel road. This one was a little dustier and wasn't quite as smooth as the road to Split Bow Arch.

When we arrived at the trailhead/picnic area, ours was again the only car in the parking lot. We stopped for a photo before we headed down the trail to the falls 

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At the start of the trail to Yahoo Falls

The distance from the parking area to the falls is about .5 to .7 mile. The trail starts out fairly wide as it goes through the dense woods.

Heavily-wooded trail to Yahoo Falls

At a height of 113', Yahoo Falls is either the highest or the second highest waterfall in Kentucky depending on what you read. There is supposedly another falls to the northeast that is also in the Daniel Boone National Forest that may be a few inches taller, but we couldn't find the name or exact location of the rival falls.

Everything we read about Yahoo Falls indicated the flow was highly dependent on the rainfall with the best flow during the spring rainy season and very little flow in summer and fall. Even though the area has gotten some rain recently, we were approaching summer and there was only a disappointing trickle.

Yahoo Falls - only a trickle

There are trails to both the top and bottom of the falls. We picked the trail that went to the top because it was shorter and not as steep. Unfortunately, there aren't any good vantage points at the top of the falls. The overlooks are all either overgrown or not far enough out in front of the falls to be able to see it well.

Located another .8 mile farther down the trail is Yahoo Arch. We debated whether or not to go to the arch or to double back and take the lower trail to the bottom of the falls. In the end, we decided to go to the arch and to possibly take the trail to the bottom of Yahoo Falls on the way back.

After we passed the falls, the trail narrowed considerably. Poison ivy lined both sides, and we had to be constantly aware of where we were stepping. In addition, the trail started to climb rather steeply making numerous switch-backs up the side of the hill.

While Yahoo Falls was unimpressive, Yahoo Arch made up for it once we finally arrived. The arch is about 17' high in the center and about 70' wide at the bottom of the opening.

Yahoo Arch - front view

Yahoo Arch was once a large rock shelter, which is a rock overhang that creates a cave-like opening in the rock face. It is called a rock shelter because primitive people would have used the overhang as a sheltered dwelling place. The back side of the rock shelter has collapsed leaving an arch. There is another large, intact rock shelter just to the left of Yahoo Arch in the photo above.

You can walk under Yahoo Arch and climb the slope behind it. To get an idea of the size of Yahoo Arch, the small spec indicated by the white arrow on the opposite side of the arch is Margery. She didn't accompany Paul on the climb up the hill behind the arch.

Yahoo Arch - rear view

To the right of the main opening of the arch in the photo above is a second, smaller opening.

Second, smaller arch opening

Paul under Yahoo Arch

The hike back to the car was mostly downhill and a lot easier, but we were already tired from the steep climb up to the arch. The temperature was only around 80º, but the humidity in the forest was very high, which also seemed to sap our energy. Therefore, we decided to take the shorter, more level trail back to the car and skip going to the bottom of Yahoo Falls. We figured it wasn't worth the effort since we were already tired and since the flow was so anemic.

Although ours was the only car at the trailhead when we first arrived, we passed several other people on the trail as we headed back to the car. There were about half a dozen other cars in the parking lot when we got back.

From the Yahoo parking area, we headed about half an hour to the northeast to Cumberland Falls. Cumberland Falls is located in Cumberland Falls State Park, which is an area of about 600 acres surrounded by the Daniel Boone National Forest.

Sometimes called the Niagara of the South, Cumberland Falls is definitely more impressive than Yahoo Falls. The average height of Cumberland Falls is 68', which is only about half that of Yahoo Falls; but the width is about 125' and the average flow is over 25,000 gallons a second.

Cumberland Falls - view from the top of the falls

When we stopped at the overlook at the top of the falls, we could see several people on the rocks below the falls fishing. One man was in a sheltered area among the rocks along the opposite shore in what looked like a home made jon boat.

Fisherman in a home made jon boat below the falls

We were still tired from our climb to Yahoo Arch earlier, but the path along the western side of the river is paved and mostly level, so we walked downstream to several other overlooks.

Cumberland Falls from a short distance downstream

Cumberland Falls form a little farther downstream

In addition to hiking on both sides of the river and picnicking, you can also take rafting trips to the base of the falls.

Rafting near the base of the falls

We made our way to the car and headed back to the motor home to relax the rest of the day. Sunday brought more rain, so we stayed inside and watched the NASCAR race. On Monday, there was more rain, and we did our usual pre-departure chores in between the raindrops in preparation for heading to our next destination on Tuesday. We'll tell you where that was in our next post.

Daniel Boone National Forest Part I: Split Bow Arch and Blue Heron Mining Community

Bronston, KY - Events of Wednesday, June 5, 2013

As we mentioned in our last post, the Daniel Boone National Forest is to the south of Lake Cumberland RV Park where we were staying. We found several things we wanted to do in the southern part of the National Forest down near the Kentucky-Tennessee line in an area known as the Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area.

The weather forecast for Wednesday was predicting a 40% chance of rain. We thought about waiting to go sightseeing; but the morning was partly sunny, so we decided to head for the southernmost point of interest and work our way back toward the north making additional stops as long as the weather held out.

Our first destination was Split Bow Arch. Although nowhere near as spectacular as the arches in Utah, there are nevertheless several arches in the Daniel Boone National Forest. The terms natural bridge and natural arch are sometimes used interchangeably; but the Natural Bridge and Arch Society defines a natural bridge as a type of natural arch where the opening was formed by a flow of water such as a stream. Most of the formations in the Daniel Boone National Forest were not formed by flowing water and are therefore arches and not bridges.

Double Bow Arch is a little hard to find because the location is fairly remote. Not only that, but the directional signs in the National Forest do not refer specifically to the arch. You need to know to follow the signs to the Bear Creek Overlook where there is trailhead parking for both the overlook and for Split Bow Arch.

Did we mention Split Bow Arch is remote? The area is definitely backwoods Kentucky.

Rural Kentucky

The last part of the road to the parking area is single-lane gravel. Fortunately, the road was fairly smooth and not dusty.

One-lane gravel road to Split Bow Arch

When we arrived at the trailhead, we found we had the place to ourselves. It has been quite some time since we have experienced that much silence. There was no traffic noise, no trains, no airplanes and no other voices - only a few birds and the breeze rustling the leaves. Oh yeah, there were also the mosquitos buzzing in our ears. They were happy to find some fresh meat in such a remote location. Fortunately, we had some insect repellent in the car.

All alone at the trailhead

The walk to the Bear Creek Overlook was only .6 mile round trip, so we headed there first.

Margery on the trail to Bear Creek Overlook

The Big South Fork of the Cumberland River has cut deep gorges into the Cumberland Plateau. Sandstone bluffs overlook the river in many places.

Big South Fork of the Cumberland River from Bear Creek Overlook

From the overlook, we returned to the parking area and followed the trail out the other side to Split Bow Arch, which is a 1.4-mile round trip.

Spring is a nice time for a walk in the woods because there were lots of flowers in bloom. The photo below shows some of them.

Wildflowers in the Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area (clockwise starting at the left) - magnolia, woodland pinkroot, ox-eye daisy, mountain laurel

The end of the trail has a loop that goes under the arch and continues up steep, wooden steps to the upper side.

Split Bow Arch from the lower side

Split Bow Arch from the upper side

Although you can't quite see it in the photos, Split Bow Arch gets its name from the fact there is a second, narrow opening in the rock above the main arch.

On the way back to the main road in the car, we stopped at another small parking area where there is an overlook at the very top of the arch. Unfortunately, we still couldn't see the double opening.

Split Bow Arch from the overlook

Our next stop was a little to the north at Blue Heron Mining Community. The Blue Heron Mine was part of the Stearns Coal and Lumber Company. There were once 22 houses, a church, a school, a store, a bathhouse, and several buildings relating to mining activities in Blue Heron.

When the company abandoned the mine in 1962, the buildings of the mining community were either dismantled or fell into disrepair. Because the coal camp was only intended to last as long as the coal in the mine held out, the buildings weren't very substantial, so there was little left to restore by the time the Stearns Coal and Lumber Company sold 43,000 acres of land that included Blue Heron to the Federal Government in 1973. Therefore, the Park Service turned the community into an interpretive center by building a series of "ghost" structures consisting of a frame, a roof and a floor. The structures are built as close as possible to their original size and location.

Blue Heron Church - rebuilt as a "ghost" structure

Most of the ghost structures contain photos and/or a display of artifacts along with voice recordings of men and women who actually lived and worked there. They described life in Blue Heron and told of its history.

J. S. Stearns came to southern Kentucky in 1902 and began timber operations. By 1910, the company expanded into coal and became known as the Stearns Coal and Lumber Company. In 1937, Stearns opened a mining operation at Blue Heron that included mines on both sides of the Big South Fork of the Cumberland River. By 1962, the Blue Heron Mine had become unprofitable and was closed.

The Big South Fork Scenic Railway has train excursions that travel the approximate 5-mile distance from Stearns, KY to Blue Heron. The town of Stearns grew up around a company store built by the Stearns Lumber Company in the early 1900s. We contemplated taking the train ride, but decided not to after we found out we could drive to Blue Heron, especially since the weather was a little iffy. The train had arrived a little before we did.

Big South Fork Scenic Railway has excursions to Blue Heron.

The most imposing building at Blue Heron is the coal tipple. It was here that the mine cars brought coal from mine tunnels on both sides of the river to be sorted according to size. Rock and debris were also separated out before the coal was loaded into rail cars for transport. The tipple was designed to sort and load up to 55 carloads of coal a day, which came to over 2,800 tons.

Coal tipple

The tipple was built lower than the mine entrances so mine cars could enter the top of the tipple to dump their loads. A tramway brought mine cars from across the river. Inside the tipple, a series of conveyors and grates with different sized openings did the sorting.

We walked up the hillside behind the tipple where a ranger was giving a presentation on mining methods. In the early days, coal was dug and loaded by hand and mules were used to haul the coal out of the mine. The mine entrance is closed, but visitors can look through the bars of the gates to see a scene of what mining might have looked like back in the day.

Digging coal by hand

From the upper level, you can walk across the tramway that used to carry the mine cars to the tipple.

Tramway to the tipple

View of the train station and the main interpretive center from the tramway

View of the Big South Fork from the tramway

When we were out in the middle of the tramway, we heard thunder off in the distance. The rain was still pretty far away, but we didn't want to be out in the open on a metal bridge in the middle of a thunderstorm, so we decided not to walk to the far side of the river. Not only that, but we wanted to try to make it to one more overlook before the rain hit, so we headed back to the car and drove a short distance to Devil's Jump Overlook. The overlook is only a few hundred feet from the parking area, which was a good thing because we could definitely see the dark clouds moving in from the northwest by the time we got to the overlook.

Dark clouds moving in at Devil's Jump

Devil's Jump is the name of the rapids below the overlook. It gets its name from a legend that dates back to the early 1800s. Martin Beaty had leased a good bit of land in the area that he was using to drill brine wells. He refined the brine into salt, which was a valuable commodity at the time. One of his wells that was being drilled very deep eventually hit a gooey, smelly black substance. No one knew what oil was at the time, and when they saw how it burned, the men were convinced they had drilled into hell.

Martin Beaty designated one of his crew to take some of the oil down the river on a raft to see if they could find out what the substance was. As the raftsman went through a particularly rough spot in the rapids, the raft overturned spilling the oil into the river. When the raftsman later told the story, he said the Devil himself jumped onto his raft and sank it in order to recover his property. The rapids have been known as Devil's Jump ever since.

It started to sprinkle while we were at the overlook. By the time we got to the car, it had begun to rain a little more seriously. We had packed a lunch that we were hoping to eat at a picnic table somewhere, but we ended up sitting in the car to eat our sandwiches in the pouring rain.

With the arrival of the downpour, our sightseeing for the day was over, so we made our way back to the motor home. We still have some things to see in the area, so look for our next post.