August has been a month of family for us and we have enjoyed it immensely. It started out with Heather’s dad and uncle coming to our house for a visit for a few days. Heather’s dad, Gary, now lives in Florida so we don’t get to see him nearly as often as we used to, nor as often as we would like, so a visit with him is always a good thing! We have talked about Uncle Richard on the blog before when he visited us in Alaska last summer. In case you don’t remember his story, he sold his house and most of his belongings last year and has embarked on full time – mostly international – travel, so he isn’t even in the United States very often. We love seeing him and hearing about all his adventures! If you would also like to follow his adventures, check out his YouTube channel! You can find him at Old, Alone and Far From Home.
When they left our house, they traveled to Ohio to visit some of Heather’s other family, Uncle Alan and his wife Linda, and Heather decided that was not nearly enough of a visit. Besides, she wanted to see Alan and Linda, too, so she also drove up to Ohio for a few days. Unfortunately, Jeff was wasn’t able to get away from work for this one, so he stayed home. It was a great visit full of storytelling, laughter, outings, and good food. Typically, when we are spending time with family, we work hard to be present in the moment, so we don’t do much in the way of taking photos or shooting video. There was a little mini adventure to Blackhand Gorge State Nature Preserve, though, where Heather took the few photos above. Blackhand Gorge is a four mile long sandstone formation through which the Licking River flows. It was named for a petroglyph that was found on the cliff face by early settlers, but unfortunately, the petroglyph no longer exists. It was destroyed during the construction of the Ohio and Erie Canal that once flowed through the area. The area has a few hiking trails and a paved multi-use path that goes through the gorge. This is a nice, shady area to get a little exercise, and if you happen to be in the area it is worth a quick stop, but it is probably not worth driving far out of your way to see.
A week or two after the Ohio trip, Richard invited us to tag along with him on a quick visit to Pikeville, KY where he was meeting friends Gary (different Gary, not Heather’s dad) and Jill. We were excited to spend some time with them all and to explore Pikeville a bit! We were really impressed with the downtown area. While it is still a bit of a sleepy little town – a surprising number of businesses were closed on the weekend – it is ADORABLE! It appears that the downtown area is undergoing a bit of a revitalization, and it is so pretty and clean! Everything is very well kept and we loved walking around and admiring the murals and artwork. The Dueling Barrels tasting room was a hit with our group, too!
Also while in the area, we went to Breaks Interstate Park for some hiking. Jeff and I had been there before, but had no hesitation about going back. It is home to Breaks Canyon which is one of the deepest gorges east of the Mississippi River. Our first stop in the park was the visitor center where a very helpful employee told us about some of the trails and offered us a nature trail guide for the Ridge Trail and Geological Trail. We had planned to do other trails, but since she highly recommended this option, we changed our plans and gave it a shot. It was a good decision! The guide gave us a lot of information about what we were seeing along the way, but even without the trail guide we highly recommend the Geological Trail. It was a beautiful trail with many rock formations along the way, and one area with a narrow gap between two rocks that you had to walk through. It was slightly challenging since there was some mild rock scrambling and the scenery changed often enough for it to always be interesting. It was also almost fully shaded, which we found important on this hot, humid Kentucky day.
In addition to our main hike, we also walked a short portion of the Overlook Trail, but the portion we were on was too wooded to get much of a view and the day was starting to get pretty hot by this point, so we turned around pretty quickly. We did get some great views from the Stateline Overlook and the Towers Overlook, though.
We were so glad to get to visit this beautiful area once again. We love this area of our home state. The peaceful Appalachian Mountains and dense forests are a really nice place to get away for some quiet and solitude. We also enjoyed spending time with some really fun people.
September looks to calm down as far as family visits and there isn’t much travel planned for leisure, but Jeff has some trips coming up for his job. We will try to at least post some photos from those adventures in a few weeks!
Until next time!
