Wacky Ohio

So, we just had a very nice Saturday, with the temperatures in the low 70s and barely a cloud in the sky.  We wanted to go hiking, and had heard a rumor about a cool place to go called Thompson's Ledges.  Since it was only an hour away, we packed up and headed out to the middle of nowhere, Ohio.  

One of the first things that struck our fancy was this water pump.  To you and me, it's just a water pump.  But, to a 2 year old, it is a curious source of unending entertainment.  I have no idea how Aaron was actually able to get the thing going, but he had to rock his whole weight on to it.  Good thing he had that extra bowl of cereal this morning!

So we start on the hike, and immediately found ourselves going town this little slot-canyonesque crack, which was about 2 or 3 feet wide and dripping wet, but pretty awesome.  Slot canyons in Ohio, whoda thunkit?
 

Anyway, the whole "ledges" are these cliffs that are totally overgrown with moss.  What's more, the rock seemed to be unable to decide whether it was a moss carpet, southern utah sandstone filled with pock-marks and striations, or a miniature version of Maple-canyon cobblestone.  Very neat, and something I would have never expected to find in Ohio.

So after hiking around these cliffs for a while, we come to this big sand dune.  Seriously, a sand dune!  And it was really fine sand too.  We were 10 or 20 miles away from lake Eerie, in the middle of the great moss kingdom at the base of some crazy cliffs, and we ran into a huge sand dune.  I was perplexed, absolutely stunned.  I was wondering if a sleep-deprived mother nature was working a little too late in the night when she created this section of the planet, when all of the sudden........

.... we saw the concrete factory. * 

*Note: if this doesn't make any sense to you, yes you should feel uneducated and ashamed.  I know I would.  Sand is in fact one of the main ingredients of concrete.  The "sand dunes" that we listlessly frolicked upon were, in actuality, a huge industrial stockpile of imported sand, destined to become your office building, parking structure, driveway, or the barricade that you "kiss" with your car because you think that you can text and drive at the same time.  As you are paying some crooked autobody shop a small fortune to correct your little mishap, just know that the unyielding wall that caused more than cosmetic damage to your ride could have once been my son's sand castle.  How's that for deep? 

Oh, and then we went to Kirtland, one of the early settlements of us Mormons.  That's all, nothing zany and/or witty to write about that.  My apologies.