Hiking the Parks & Preserves of Ohio
Topographic maps provide information on the geographic features and terrain contours of a given area. You can see where the lakes, streams, fields and forests are located. Brown lines depict changes in elevation and let you know where the ridges and hollows are located. As with a street map, roads, highways, towns, and villages, and political boundaries are also depicted.
Sharon Woods Metro Park is part of the Columbus and Franklin County Metro Park system in central Ohio. This Metro Park is 761 acres, and that’s including the 320-acre Edward S. Thomas State Nature Preserve that’s tucked inside it. The park features a 3.8-mile, paved, multipurpose loop trail. There’s also an additional 3.35 miles of hiking trails. The trails pass through a variety of habitats, including woodlands, ravines, meadows, prairie and wetland.
In May we stayed at Punderson Manor – an English Tudor style lodge located Punderson State Park. The lodge was comfortable and convenient to a variety of natural venues. Oh yes, and it is reputed to be haunted by a dozen ghosts.
Continue reading “Punderson Manor Lodge & Conference Center”
We happened to be at the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium for the final day of a three-day pumpkin carving contest (it was held Sept. 20-22). On this last day the competitors were asked to carve a single, large, freestyle pumpkin. We enjoyed seeing the carvers at work and looking at pumpkins that were carved earlier in the contest, and it seemed like a nice topic to start of the month of October. Since the contest was being held at a zoo, many of the carvings explored the zoo and aquarium theme.
Continue reading “2013 Jack Hanna’s Pumpkin Carving Competition”
While attending the Ohio Pawpaw Festival in Athens, I got the opportunity to try out an ancient weapon — the atlatl. The atlatl is also known as a spear thrower; although, today the spear is referred to as a dart. Since the dart is fletched with feathers, it looks a like a really long arrow. The atlatl was used by the earliest Paleoindian cultures in Ohio. It continued to be the primary weapon of Native Americans in Ohio until it was displaced by the bow and arrow in the late woodland period.
Walnut Woods is the newest Columbus area Metro Park. This 1,032 acre park is located southeast of Columbus near Groveport.
We attended the 15th annual Pawpaw festival at Lake Snowden, Ohio. The pawpaw is a native Ohio fruit and was the main attraction of the festival.
The Wilds is both a wildlife conservation center and a tourist attraction. From a tourist’s perspective, visiting The Wilds is like visiting a really, really big zoo. It sits on nearly 10,000 acres of land in rural, southeastern Ohio. Although the carnivorous animals at The Wilds live in fenced areas, most of the big, herd animals live in enclosures that are so large they don’t feel like enclosures at all. Instead of walking from one wildlife habitat to the next as you would at a traditional zoo, guests typically experience The Wilds while riding in a tour bus, although there are alternative means for getting around.
Kiser Lake Wetlands is a 51 acre state nature preserve in Champaign County. It is located in a corner of Kiser Lake State Park. We visited this preserve in mid-May. The preserve has a 0.6 mile boardwalk / trail system that interconnects with the 0.7 mile Red Oak trail in the park making a 1.3 mile loop.
Continue reading “Kiser Lake Wetlands State Nature Preserve”
I’m going to refer to a pawpaw as a “tree”, but it could just as well be thought of as being a really large shrub. A mature specimen typically grows to a height of 25 feet, reaching its full height in about 20 years. According to Wikipedia the trunk can grow to be as large as 12 inches in diameter, but all the trunks that I’ve seen have been smaller than that. Because it is a relatively short tree with a thin trunk, its wood is not suitable for timber. However its fruit is the largest produced by any native plant in the United States.
