Hiking Coral Berry Trail

Come along with us as we hike Coral Berry Trail

We wake up Thursday as a new month and day dawns. However, the weather remains dull and gray, rain has begun pitter pattering on the roof again. Darn, the kids wanted to check out the Cincinnati Zoo today. Oh well, I don’t want to spend the fifty plus dollars to go. Also, I really wanted to hunker in and get some reservations made, clear up all the frozen accounts due to fraud prevention (every time I travel, I get locked out) and work on the blog.

That’s pretty much what our day consists of except for an afternoon intermission. I shuffle the kids out of the RV for a two-mile hike on Coral Berry Trail. Oh, they whine and they cry their feet hurt. One makes it out in sandals, even though I specified socks and sneakers. But we come out alive……..barely! Take a hike with us :-).

Not long into the two-mile hike, I start taking pictures. There are still some pretty flowers dotting the sides of the trail.

We walk a little farther and I spot what I believe to be the trails namesake, coral berries. I actually had to google this one and images looking like both of these pop up.

A little further on, we spot this lonely structure hanging out among the rolling hills.

The trail actually borders private property. So I see what I believe to be a soybean crop and then later some young corn plants. I can’t imagine that crop will make it before the cold hits. We walk a little further and come across this cool looking gnarly tree or probably more a vine of some sort.

Not much further on our journey we come across this pink-coated pouty beast crying that she wants to go back home. This trail stuff is not for her. Oh, my little pudding, too bad for you. This is gym class in your circle of the world!

Coral Berry trail certainly has a lot of hills. And you know what they say, “what goes up, must come down”. And down and up we go. We meander across a dried up-stream and some rocks.

We come to a clearing at the top of a hill and venture off the trail for a brief moment. We see a road and some civilization. The houses dotted on the hill are just a speck. I zoom in and capture the big one on the right. Look at all those windows. She’s a beauty.

We come across some more cheerful friends along our path. I’m not big on spiders but a garden spider never hurt anyone. And they spin some of the coolest webs. Besides, it’s almost Halloween!

We come out into an opening. A beautiful lake is there to greet us complete with benches all around. I tell the girls this is one of our rewards for hiking all those hills.

After hanging out relaxing by the lake, we decide to head back on the trail. But now it’s not clear which way we should go? Should we continue around the lake? Or should we go back and follow the other loop of the trail? Can we say it together, “RV Lost Yet?”. My poor sense of direction certainly doesn’t help anything. We opt for the other loop on the trail. Only to come out way down the hill near the entrance to the park! We follow another trail and come back around the lake on the opposite side. We walk up some steps, avoiding what looks like a mud wasp nest in the ground.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We continue walking and them come to a fork in the trail. I ask the girls, “Should we walk up that hill (more like a friggin’ cliff) or should we veer onto the trail on the left?”. They decide the hill is the way to go. I’m game for just about anything that will get us home at this point in time! So we hike up, up, up, up, up……rest for a bit, hike up, up, up, up………………

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We finally emerge at the top and find ourselves in the parking lot just below our camping loop. We climb up one more hill and head home. Our two-mile hike turned into about three. I wish Kentucky marked their trails better or that I actually had a sense of direction.

One thing I really love about camping at state parks is the nature all around us. They’re also usually much cheaper than private campgrounds. The one thing I don’t like is limited internet signals. Also, most of them don’t offer full hook-ups. Sometimes you get nothing, other times it’s water or electric. Currently we’re lucky enough to have water and electric.

But we can’t dump our tanks unless I unhook everything, pull in the slides, lift up the jacks and go to the dump station. Then I need to set everything back up again. And it wasn’t easy leveling everything this time around, we’re on uneven turf. And some of the tanks are reading full right now.

There is no free wi-fi and we’re also using up our gigabytes. So, the next site I booked is at a private campground. We need a little break. And a site with full hook-ups and free wi-fi. I think there’s a blockage in one of the black tanks. So I need to be able to get my little hose wand in there and flush it out. I can’t do that unless we’re hooked up to a sewer drain.

So we’re pushing through and will be staying close to St. Louis. We’ll be hanging out in Cahokia, Illinois. After this, we’ll brave some more state/national parks. I really do enjoy their beauty and price tag.

Tomorrow we’ll be rolling on down the road. It rained nearly the entire time we’ve been here. Unfortunately the kids now refer to Kentucky as the state of doom and gloom. Today, our last day, the sun finally came out. But I think she’s been good to us so I bid a fair goodbye to Kentucky and hello to Illinois/Missouri! See you there!

{HUGS} from the Crew!

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