After Mike takes a long run, we “break camp”– just pull the electrical plug – and head to Black-Hand Gorge Nature Preserve just east of Newark, which we read on a biking website has a 4.2 mile bike trail through a stunning gorge. We eat lunch at the trailhead, sharing a picnic table with a woman and her 10-year-old daughter who bike this trail often. Because the website warned about rough pavement we decide to walk instead of bike. It is a hot day, but the shaded trail follows the Licking River, which cut the gorge. A huge outcropping of black rock forms the “Black Hand.” At the turnaround point a group of young guys set out to tube the river. Faced with walking back the 4-plus miles in the heat with little water left, and seeing that the pavement isn’t that bad, I wish we had ridden our bikes. But we enjoy the view from the Quarry Rim Trail and make it back.
Mike goes into the camper to get his soap so we can wash poison ivy off our legs, but he quickly comes back out, saying we have to go back to Salt Fork. He hung his wet running clothes on the picnic table at the campsite and then put his toiletry bag there, too, so he wouldn’t forget them. We left it all. It is 3:00pm, the drive back to Salt Fork is 80 miles, and we have dinner plans in Columbus for 6:00om. While Mike drives, I call Salt Fork and the woman at the office kindly offers to go see if the things are still at the campsite. When I call back 20 minutes later, she says she is holding it all for us at the office. We grab the stuff, get our friends to change the reservation to 6:30pm, and fly to Columbus.
We make it to “M”, one of Columbus’s finest restaurants, just in time to wash our faces and throw “dress-up” clothes over our hot, sweaty bodies. The valet lets us park the RV ourselves on the circle in front. As Mike gives him the keys, he jokes that the valet could take a nap in the RV while we eat dinner.
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