Alum Creek State Park

This past weekend Mom and I joined a group of friends at Alum Creek State Park in Delaware, Ohio.  This camping trip was to serve two purposes:  1st, I've never been there and it's always fun to explore new territory and 2nd, our friend's husband and granddaughter were to celebrate their joint birthday on Saturday.

We arrived Friday late afternoon just before dark and sat around the campfire chatting, listening to the owls and stargazing.

Saturday morning we got a late start, but finally headed out around noon.

Ready to go.

There were six of us originally planning on riding together, but it quickly became apparent that not all of our horses were going to get along.  The horses were HOT - way too hot for the tricky terrain that we were trying to traverse, and there was some kicking and general disobedience going on fueled by the situation.

So, we split into two groups of three and went our separate ways.  The rest of the day was fairly uneventful and all of the horses quickly recovered from the earlier excitement.

The Others

Along the way, the fall scenery was amazing.  We passed through a corridor of these bushes, covered with pretty red berries.  No, we didn't eat any.

Berry Close

Berries, berries, everywhere

Right after the berry patch, we came to a tunnel.  Well, it was actually a gigantic culvert that passed underneath a highway.

Guinness was all like,

Guinness:  "!!!!!!!!"

So I got off and walked him through the tunnel to fend off any "boogie men" while my mounted counter parts rode through with nary an issue.

Go towards the light!

After the tunnel episode, all went well and all I have to add for the rest of the ride is some scenic fall-in-the-woods porn:

While the scenery was beautiful, there were plenty of places where the trail itself - wasn't.  Mud, mud, mud.  We were all pretty well covered in it by the time we got back from our 5 hours in the saddle.

Alum Creek Horseman's Camp has a pretty decent hosing station though, so we were able to hose the worst of the mud off the horses.

Basking in the sunshine

We got settled in camp while watching the sun go down and waited for the birthday party guests to arrive at our campsite.

Then we had a big potluck dinner, and sat around the fire for a bit before Mom and I headed off to bed and let the party goers howl at the moon.

Sunday morning we woke up bright and early, well rested after our early bedtime the night before.  The same three of us decided to head out together again to explore a different trail.  It was supposed to be a short, couple hour ride.  It ended up being 4 hours, but it was pretty and fun.

Ok, so I got bored with taking photos, so I tried to capture some of the ride on Sunday in video format.

It's not great, because I was simply hanging onto my little point and shoot camera while riding, but it's kinda neat, nonetheless.  I had to dub over the audio with an appropriate song, because honestly, the video was laced with heavy effort grunting and cursing.  Hey, it's not easy to stay on with no hands through that stuff!

Anyway, here's my attempt at video:

Happy Riding all!






~The RoadQueen