Washington Court House

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We had one more week to spend in Ohio after our short stop in Norwalk. One of our neighbors while we were camping at Salt Fork State Park had suggested we check out Deer Creek State Park. It was not far off of out planned route as we head south so we decided to give it a try. It’s partway between Columbus and Cincinnati near the town of Washington Court House (WCH). We had tried to reserve a site for a full week but that wasn’t happening. So many of these state parks are booked over the weekends especially now that summer weather is just around the corner and we weren’t planning far enough ahead of time to manage 7 nights. There were lots of sites available if we eliminate the Friday and Saturday nights and come in on Sunday. We considered heading to one of my sisters and just “camp” on the driveway. But then we realized there is an Elks Lodge in WCH not far from the state park. So many of the lodges on the eastern half of the country don’t have any utilities but will allow dry camping (like we had just done in Norwalk). Turns out this one has both 50 and 30 amp outlets. We knew this would allow us to stay in the area for the weekend before heading to Deer Creek.

Our drive was only 165 miles but it did go thru the middle of Columbus which turned out to be reasonably easy. The lodge has a paved parking lot with a gravel perimeter lot. We got there before it had opened but we scoped out the power situation and got setup. When the bar opened, I went in and told them our plans. Each lodge handles traveling Elks differently. Some need a form to be filled out with all sorts of information while others only want to see your valid Elks card. This one told me to just sign the visitor book and barely looked at my card. There wasn’t a planned dinner that Friday evening but told us we could come back for steak night on Saturday.

We had scoped out a few things to do in the vicinity of WCH but the thing that caught our eye were 48 puzzle caches that created “geo art” on the map. In this case the geo art was a cyclist. The containers themselves are not at the posted coordinates but solving a simple puzzle for each cache would give the actual hiding locations for the 48 geocaches. We went to work Friday evening to have the actual coordinates ready to go for the next morning. The caches are all along the Paint Creek Recreation Trail (formerly known as the Tri-County Triangle Trail). This trail runs between the towns of Chillicothe and WCH. It’s a paved 30+ mile trail. Fortunately the 48 caches were confined to about an 8 mile section of the trail.

Since the trail is a slight downhill as it heads southeast out of WCH, we drove to the Austin parking lot trailhead and started the ride to the northwest back towards WCH. This put us just beyond the furthest cache. We had brought along lunch and the plan was to spend however long it took to get them all. The trail is in nice shape.  It recently paved but only a few bumpy spots where some tree roots are pushing up the pavement. There were also a few other geocaches not part of the geoart. One was called covered bridge which intrigued us until we got to it. Okay technically it is a bridge and it is covered but it wasn’t what we were hoping for! There were also lots of flowers in bloom along the way. The trail had a few other cyclists and walkers but for the most part was pretty quiet. We ended up getting 45 of the 48 so the map below shows a smilie for those we found and a frown for those we didn’t find. It was a long day but when we got to the last cache and turned around it was a pleasant ride back to the car.

Nearly Complete Bicycle Geoart

Covered Bridge?

Columbine Blooming

Even though the lodge was having steak night, we headed back to grab quick showers and then rewarded ourselves with our first real meal indoors away from home in well over a year. Our treat was a Skyline Chili in the nearby town of Wilmington. Sunday morning we relaxed until it was time to head to Deer Creek. Check in wasn’t until 3 PM and it was only an 18 mile drive so we probably could have fit in some other excitement in WCH while we waited but the bodies were tired from the 17.5 mile bike ride yesterday.

Our first full day at Deer Creek was a rainy one. We only managed to get in a walk around the fairly large campground in between rain showers. We had found our site wasn’t very level but realized that it wasn’t bad compared to many others within the park. The following day the rain had cleared  it we figured the trails might still be muddy or wet so we got the bikes out to ride around the state park. There is a nice looking golf course not far from camp. I think we took every single road within the park just to see what was there. The lodge wasn’t very busy but looks like it has some nice facilities. The pool area is fairly large and there are some swinging benches on the bluff that overlooks the lake. There are also a large number of cottages available to rent. It looks like a nice place to get away from Columbus that isn’t very far away. Our tour of the park came in at just over 10 miles.

Atrium at Deer Creek Lodge

Sitting Area with Fireplace

Deer Creek Lodge Pool

There aren’t a ton of hiking options in the vicinity but as I was checking out options, I discovered Slate Run Metro Park. It is part of the Columbus Metro park system even though it is well outside of Columbus and isn’t even in the same county as Columbus. It was only about a 30 mile drive to the east for us and the place looked promising. We packed a lunch and headed out. Our first stop in the park was the Slate Run Living Historical Farm. We’ve seen our fair share of these types of places and figured it would be entertaining for 15 minutes or so and then we would check out the rest of the park. Let’s just say we were pleasantly surprised by how well refurbished the place is. The land here has been actively farmed since the early 1800’s. The farm is setup to represent what it would have been like in the 1880’s

Entrance at Living Historical Farm

There is a tenth of a mile path from the parking area back to the farm. I was intrigued by the novel gate from the path into an adjacent field. It works sort of like a modern day turnstile but this one only moves back and forth maybe 30 degrees allowing one person at a time to get in or out. Coming around the bend we see a nicely restored farm house with large gardens next to it. A woman was dressed in the proper garb for her time period although it made the hot and hard work of planting the garden all that more difficult. We chatted with here for a bit as she did her chores. The farmhouse is a beauty in the Gothic Revival style built in 1856. Currently the farmhouse is closed to visitors probably due to COVID. There are several smaller out buildings including the outhouse which has been fitted with more modern conveniences. There is a smoke house that smells like it may still see use and a food storage shed that was full of all sorts of canned vegetables. It was then that I realized that the jars of beans, pickles and all sorts of things were not there simply for show.

Turnstile Precursor

Old Farm House

Want Some Green Beans?

We head back over a small creek and enter the main farm area. The barn is very large - maybe 80 by 50 feet - and a couple stories tall. We slowly worked our way around the inside of the barn checking out all the old relics and a large collection of farm animals. Several dairy cows and a couple of rams were hiding inside from the rather warm temperatures. There are all sorts of geese and ducks running around the farm as well. Several horses were out in their fenced in enclosure.

Beautiful Old Barn

Chilling in the Barn

Duck Relaxing

Ready to Plow the Fields

There were several small wired holding houses that had recent additions to the farm - several mother ducks and a multitude of ducklings. We presume the small huts are meant to keep the youngsters safe from potential predators. There were also a bunch of sheep in another pen with quite a few lambs that didn’t look to be very old. They were mainly up by the fence trying to keep cool in its shade.

Mother Duck #1

Mother Duck #2

Baaaaaa

The pigpen had about 8 pigs snoozing in the shade. Be grateful my camera doesn’t have “smell-o-rama” because the smell was rather potent inside the sty. There was a bird coop with small fenced in pen that had a handful of turkeys and peahens. The turkeys would do their normal gobble occasionally but the peahens were some of the loudest and most obnoxious sounding birds we’ve come across. They did not like us being anywhere close to their home. Nearby was a couple dozen bee houses. We could just see and hear the buzzing so we knew they were real.

Let Sleeping Pigs Lie

Peahen Sunbathing

Peahen Causing a Ruckus

Bee Hives

There were also several large buildings with all sorts of equipment. Some areas were setup to show the woodworking tools of that time period. Another was the blacksmith’s shop. These didn’t look to be simply for display either. I suspect that all this stuff sees use during the busy summer months with volunteers showing how the tools work. We ended up spending well over an hour here and if there had been more volunteers working the various displays, I bet we would have been there quite a bit longer. There were a few shaded picnic tables back at the farm’s parking lot which worked well for our lunch.

Old Woodworking Shop

Old Hay Rake

Picturesque Farm Setting

Cluck, Cluck, Cluck

From the farm, we head into the main portion of Slate Run. It turns out the rest of the park is very nice as well. There is a big picnic shelter and the playground equipment had a couple of jungle gyms that I was tempted to try. We headed over to the covered bridge that was built in 1885. It has been moved a couple times over it’s life and was restored in this park in 1998. We did about a mile loop trail beyond the covered bridge but knew there was more hiking based on a couple other geocaches hidden along them. We did a combination of the Sugar Maple Trail and Five Five Oaks trail. It was a very pretty walk in the woods and very well shaded to cut down on the heat. One thing that caught our eye was the “Natural Play Area”. Steps lead down to a shallow creek and the idea is to give kids a chance to explore nature up close. We did see a toad not far from there. Wonder how many times it has been picked up by kids? Our hike was about 3 miles and was surprisingly hilly but enjoyable.

Picnic Shelter

Awesome Jungle Gyms

1885 Covered Bridge

Natural Play Area

Toad

We didn’t have enough energy to try some of the other trails that branched off from our loop but back at the parking area, we did muster the effort to check out the trail and boardwalk that is at Buzzard’s Roost Lake. I was admiring the lily pads when I noticed something moving. It was on top of the lily pads so I knew it wasn’t a fish. There were a couple of 18 inch long snakes swimming under, over and around the lily pads. They didn’t stop very often but did get a few pictures - turns out to be the northern water snake which is not venomous. It was a pretty lake with lots of young geese wandering around with their parents. This park was much nicer than we every expected. I was thinking “metro park” would mean a small park in the middle of an urban jungle. We took a different route back thru the town of Circleville to check out Wittich's Candy Shop. We had heard they have some good chocolates and we heard right!

Northern Water Snake on Lily Pad

In Bloom

Buzzard's Roost Lake

For our last day in the park, we decided to give the Rolling Hills Trail a chance. We hoped it had dried out enough from the rain earlier in the week. The trail starts from the camping area but there really isn’t a sign or other indication of the trail. There is a small wooden foot bridge over a creek that leads across an open field before dropping into the woods. From there the trail was much more obvious but doesn’t look like it has seen much maintenance to cut back all the overgrown honeysuckle. Even so, it was a pleasant hike with some hills but not too extreme. At the lake, we spotted another water snake and a lot more geese. It eventually leads back to the lodge so we took the opportunity to head in and cool off in the air conditioning and take advantage of the WiFi to replenish some of our Amazon Prime shows on our phones.

Wildflowers Along Trail

Another Northern Water Snake

Small Dock at Deer Creek Lodge

Dam Across from Lodge

The trailhead at the lodge end is much more prominently marked. Round trip is just over 3 miles. Deer Creek State Park was a pleasant stop. In all we spent 35 nights camping in Ohio. All but 6 of those nights were spent in four very nice Ohio State Parks. We hadn’t planned on making these past 5 weeks turn into a state park tour of Ohio, but it worked out well. Next we will head south as we work our way to the Asheville North Carolina area for the bulk of the summer.

Trailhead Marker at Lodge End

Moth Poses