jana_denardo

Today it was nearly 80. In February. In Ohio. Setting aside how messed up that is, and how it is no doubt a sobering sign of a deranged environment, I decided since I can't change it, I might as well as enjoy it (as it is supposed to storm then snow tomorrow and be nearly sixty degrees colder. Joy). I decided to do what druids do, get out in nature. I headed out to Ash Cave, which is more of rock shelter/recess cave than it is anything else and in spite of using it in These Haunted Hills I hadn't been to it (and now I see things to tweak).

It's actually less than 40 miles from me but takes about an hour to get to thanks to the rollercoaster roads and having to slow down thru small towns. I didn't know, until talking to local friends about These Haunted Hills that Ash Cave was handicapped accessible (I just looked past that one the web site). They have the 'grandma's gateway' trail which is a cement trail all the way to the basin. So it's a very easy walk even for someone like me who is more arthritis than anything.

Also those aforementioned allergies? They're to tree pollen. You know like the cedars and hemlocks I was surrounded by. Ah, life. I had my inhaler. And I was more itchy than raspy. It was a really nice setting. People have been carving their names into the limestone forever (I saw some from the 1800s) so if there were any from the original occupants (the Wyandot? The Shawnee? It's up for debate) you couldn't tell now.

The waterfall is light and you can literally walk under it if you so desire (the children darting everywhere did). There are a ton of people in my pics because everyone had the same idea as I did. I went to the water's edge. I explored the recess (but wasn't sure where the whispering galleries were) then I went behind the water fall. Some pictures of the way the limestone was carved by the water all those centuries ago will pop up on macro mondays.

Pigeons use the recesses to roost in. A couple came to see what I was doing. Or maybe to see why one idiot kept doing his wild animal calls. I decided that since I had the easy walk in, I'd take the natural trail on the upper rim. I climb a jillion stairs up to the rim and set off. It was fairly easy too for that matter...until I get to the part where I have go climb down some 'rock' stairs. Wet rock stairs. I decided that since a) I forgot my cellphone like a moron b) was alone it was probably not my best idea to try to get down those. If I'd been with someone and we could have steadied each other I would have been game but as it was, it would have been unwise.

I turned around and about then the ankle I broke in about 6 places as kid decided it had just about enough of my crap and started aching. Once I got back down the steps and on more even ground it was happy again. I did find another trail that wasn't paved that went a few hundred feet at least before cross the creek back to the cement walk way.

It was a nice walk. I got great pictures and a better understanding of the site and better questions I can ask my friend who is a naturalist out there so I can firm up a few points in These Haunted Hills.

On the way home I stopped at Arch and Eddie's for a tasting board of beer and dinner only to find out they had opened their own brew pub next door and today was opening day. Yep more beer was consumed and thank goodness I didn't forget my ereader with my phone because I sat there for a while sobering back up so I could get home.

Have some pictures:

From the near end:

Up close and personal :

Splash down:

Water in motion:

Behind the falls"

and

neat lens flares:

Lens flare? Wet lens? Ghost?

Far side of the cave:

Pretending I'm not sweating (my god, my hands are like Yato's from Noragami: Stray God)

Nothing But Himself in Less than Three's charity anthology, Project Fierce, was set in a fictionalized version of my local town. There is on the bad side of town a little cemetery next to a house and across the street from a cheap (potentially hooker) hotel. This whole place has a bad 'feel' to it.

Today for Halloween I stopped in the cemetery and wished I had stopped when I wrote the story because it would have made it creepier. The heart of the cemetery is a hill (where I had Nobody bed down in the story) which turns out is a Hopewell Native American mound. WHich the town fathers then used as their own private burying place.

You can just about hear the theme to Halloween or Poltergeist at this point.

Then almost every headstone is busted off and just lying around the cemetery, some propped up against the iron fence.

the mound

The house Nobody lived in.


I do wish I had been smart enough to stop earlier. Of course I wish I had published this story under my non-erotica name because I would have liked to investigate this world more. Ah well.