Hurricane season is almost here! Have you got your “hurrication” plans made?
While we don’t have to deal with snow, part of living in South Florida is having to deal with hurricane season every year. Each season residents are faced with two options: 1) Hunker down and ride out the storm or 2) Get out of town. Both of these options come with their own unique set of challenges.
When you choose to hunker down…
You must be prepared to wait in line no matter where you go. Think of it as a game of Monopoly. You might get lucky the first time and have that “Free Parking” moment, but chances are for gas or groceries you will have to wait until the next turn around the board. Get ready for multiple trips to various grocery stores to round up all of the necessary supplies since each store has its own type of apocalyptic horror to face. No carts can be found to push around the 10 gallons of water you need to buy, the shelves that used to have alcohol are empty, and crying children are being dragged through the store. The lines at the register are rolling 10 carts deep and filled with shelf-stable milk, cans of spray cheese, beer, and beef jerky. Credit card machines are down and they are asking for your emergency cash….get the picture? It is pure madness! Chances are that when you see shelves COMPLETELY empty, a category 4 or 5 is predicted to make landfall soon.
When you choose to get out of town…
You must be prepared for a different type of waiting in line called evacuation traffic. This is a time where everyone has forgotten the rules of the road and you pray that you don’t get side swiped by that one car that decided to take the merge lane all the way down to the end where there is no lane left for them to merge from. If you are going to leave, don’t make the mistake of waiting until the last minute to get packed up and roll out of town like we did.
In September of 2017, we were newly engaged and being faced with the classic “should I stay or should I go?” moment that comes when they tell you the storm is predicted to be the worst one in history. You know it’s bad when they actually cancel school for multiple days in a row.
As a future bride, I was ready to get out of town while my then future husband was not about that life. The two of us had to figure out how to navigate the “we” part of our ideas and come together on some type of compromise. My parents were ready to evacuate to my cousin’s house in Kentucky while his parents and brother, wife, and kids were staying put with the dogs. After lots of tears, dramatics, and refusing to leave my future husband behind, pointing out that our new engagement meant we would be going together, I’m happy to report I was able to get him into the rented Suburban.
Although we were situated in a spacious, luxury vehicle as Jeremy would describe it this was the most awful car trip of his life considering how bad the traffic was and how long the trip took. His back gets really sore when riding for a while and he was getting restless. Me on the other hand, I was just so smitten with the fact that he finally agreed to come – with much reluctance – and was actually in the car with me that I didn’t care how long the drive took. What should have taken us 14 hours took about 21 hours.
Once we finally arrived at my cousin’s house, we made the best of it while staying tuned in to the news to keep an eye on things back home. Meanwhile, I was trying to find anything I could to overcompensate for how miserable Jeremy was on the trip up and how he was dreading the return trip. I did manage to find three nature park locations that we decided to visit. One trail we walked on our own, the other two my parents joined us for.
Russell Park – Ashland, Ky.
Anyone exploring this trail has a choice of 3 loops. Each one is identified by colored arrows along the trail, and you can choose either direction to travel in since the loop will bring you back to where you started as long as you stick to it. There are no facilities nearby, so make sure you go to the bathroom before you arrive at the trail. However, you can complete each of these in 10-30 minutes depending on your pace, which leaves plenty of time to venture to other locations.
Natural Bridge
Located in Slade, Kentucky near Lexington this venue is one of the better-known park areas of Kentucky and gets many visitors each year. They even have lodging and a restaurant for those who choose to stay a few days to explore every area the park has to offer.
Since my mom and dad were with us and we knew we would be exploring for a while once we made it up to the top, we decided to enjoy the ride up to the top.
You can ride the chair lift back down if you choose to walk up. Once you exit the chair lift at the top, you have a bit of trail path to trek before making it to the open air view the bridge has to offer.
Once you get to this tree with the exposed roots, you are just about to the viewing area.
There are no fences or railings, so smile big and don’t step back. This picture does not capture the depth of all of the lush green tree tops that extend uninterrupted as far as the eye can see.
Once you’ve snapped your pictures from above, it’s time to head down below to admire more of the natural beauty of these winding trails.
Remember that photo on the left of the Natural Bridge sign? This is the VERY narrow passageway that takes you from the top of the bridge down the bottom to a trail that passes underneath. It is one-lane so look before entering to make sure you aren’t going to meet someone in the middle and have to make the decision as to which one of you will walk in reverse. Recommended only for the brave, not for the claustrophobic. Mom was a trooper and overcame her fear.
Once you make it out from underneath the bridge, you can find plenty of obstacles and rock terrain to use to enhance your skill-related components of fitness: balance, agility, speed, power, reaction time. Here’s where it started to get pretty entertaining as we slowed down our pace to have some fun. No hikers were injured in the capturing of these photographs surprisingly.
We made some great memories just being in the moment and enjoying each others company, something we hadn’t been able to do in the weeks leading up to this day due to the hurricane.
After walking down quite a few sets of stairs, you can find yourself here in front of this naturally-created rock statue. This is also great for staging some epic pics without the need for editing.
As you wrap up your journey at Natural Bridge and make your way towards the exit, just remember to watch for fallen debris. If you’re lucky you might meet some nice people along the way that can help you out.
Carter Caves
Upon arriving you’ll need to head in to the store to purchase your tickets before heading out on the trails, there are several to choose from. Just make sure there are no temporary closures, as one site was closed the day we went.
The beginning of the trail is pretty mild. Further in you’ll have the chance to take the trail less traveled if you so choose.
Do watch out for the roots, they have a tendency to jump out and grab you.
It was great having my cousin with us so that Jeremy and I could both get to play around in the forest.
Extreme exploration can be a lot of fun for those of us that enjoy a moment of “living on the edge” from time to time, but don’t forget to stop and take a moment to appreciate the beauty of the space you’re in.
And then he just had to find this cave…moment over. It’s GO time!
Me: Jeremy…..there’s water.
Jeremy: Yeah, I know. It’s fine. There’s rocks. C’mon. Look, here’s what you can do….
Me: Um, no thank you. We’ll figure out another way to get back there.
We went in. We sat for a bit. Admired how cool it was. Then we thought about how dark it was and wondered if there were any bats. Plus, we realized that it was getting late, we were getting hungry, my parents were waiting on us at the store, and we had a long way to walk back. As we were headed back out we found these! We didn’t know what kind of paws made these, but thought now would be a great time to go.
With Jeremy’s help, we climbed out of the cave and headed back to the trail.
Just missing the drips of the natural “waterfall”.
Thankfully we made it back without any further delays and without running into any mountain lions, much to Jeremy’s dismay. Where did we find mom and dad? In the rocking chairs of course, as if they were waiting for a table at Cracker Barrel.
On all of our walks we had been talking about additional travel ideas; discussing places we wanted to go, but had never been before. One of Jeremy’s destinations was Washington, D.C. Oh yes, I was going to make it happen. I only half-jokingly said I wanted to make sure he didn’t call off the wedding – he REALLY hated that car ride. Check out our Washington, D.C. post to view all the beauty and wonder of the national parks, memorials, and other must-sees.