Let's Go Places: A Leaf Peep Trip!

I don't believe that I ever heard the term "leaf peeping" before last year, but that just means that I've been living under a rock.  Wikipedia says the term was used in the West Wing and the Sopranos, so it's been around for a while.

I wasn't intending for my October trip to be a Leaf Peep activity, but that's what ended up happening.  And given that it was the anniversary of that time when I persuaded my family to do a girls trip on Scout Camp weekend, I'm now officially declaring that the third weekend in October is Leaf Peep Weekend.

My destination was originally the town of Yellow Springs, which is a small town in Ohio located between Columbus and Cincinnati.  For reasons we'll discuss in a minute, Yellow Springs ended up being just one of many destinations.

I was on the fence about taking another October trip.  It's true that my family was going to be away at scout camp so there was no reason to stay home, but I'd already been to Columbus and the whole family has an end-of-month-shenanigan.  The other hesitation is that my list of things to do was very scatter-shot and vague.  Yellow Springs has a ton of shopping, but I'm not really in to that.  Take shopping out of the equation and it looked like a lot of hiking.  There's nothing wrong with that, but I can hike at home.  One negative of the leaf peep trip that we did last year is that we OD'd on hiking.  I wanted to do some but not a ton.  But on the other hand I've never regretted one of these trips and I often can't tell exactly what's out there until I get boots on the ground.

In the meantime, I've had a funny hobby for the past few months, which is signing up for no-fee credit cards with introductory bonus offers.  My latest venture resulted in a $200 bonus that was payable in gift cards, so naturally I chose Airbnb and felt that this was the Universe's way of telling me to take the trip.

But oops I should have learned from last year's trip...EVERYONE wants to go leaf peeping this time of year.  Yellow Springs has a ton of cool Airbnbs, and they were 100% booked.  Aw man.

I expanded my range to see what I could get that was close to Yellow Springs.  My top two contenders were a house in Dayton and an apartment in Urbana.  The Dayton house was a good price, had a deck that overlooked a river, and the hosts included pictures of bald eagles that they'd taken on the property.  The Urbana apartment was an even better price, and speaking as someone who grew up in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, the idea of staying in the "Ohio" Urbana was amusing.  But getting a picture of a bald eagle tho...

As I was going back and forth and juggling a thousand other details of the weekend, I noticed something very odd.  Urbana, Ohio is located in Champaign County.  What????  Two Urbanas is one thing but TWO CHAMPAIGN URBANAS????  What was up with that?

I went to google and learned that the word champaign means "open level countryside".  Sure enough, Champaign, Illinois is flat as a pancake.  Urbana is just someone having fun with the word urban.  Google didn't care to share the connection between Ohio and Illinois with me, but it was enough of an exercise in nostalgia that I picked Urbana as my home base for the trip.

Friday - wheels up

I hit the road after lunch and my first stop was Columbus.  My first stop was something that I first encountered last spring in Marietta, and something that I learned about too late to visit on my last trip to CBUS.  That thing is ancient burial mounds.

This is Shrum Mound.  Please believe me that it is much larger than it appears in the picture.

From my limited knowledge of these mounds (acquired by reading the historical marker signs next to them), I understand that they were often but not always used for burials and were usually built near water and served as look out points as well.  And if you'll scroll up to the top of this post, they are great vantage points for leaf peeping.

The non river/non leaf peep view:

My next stop was Springfield, which I'd previously visited last January. I hit up a few things that I didn't get to which were fine but not "OMG drop everything and go to Springfield NOW".  However, if you happen to find yourself in Springfield, Ohio, I do have an full day of OMG activities for you:

• The Hartman Rock Garden
• The Frank Lloyd Wright Wescott house
• Eat at Speakeasy Ramen
• Stop by the Ohio Caverns in West Liberty about half an hour away.
  

Now it was dinner time, so I headed for my home away from home in the fair city of Urbana.

Hey Urbana, Ohio, you're a good looking place.  I had enough daylight left to walk around a bit before bunking in for the night.  I felt like pizza so I hit up Sparky's Pizza, which gave me two nights worth of dinners plus two lunches the next week.  The pizza was good, but the more that I wandered around Urbana the more interesting restaurants I saw, so if I go back I will definitely expand my culinary horizons.

Saturday - adventure time

The next morning my first adventure was on foot.  I don't always exercise on these trips, but when I do it's because I've heard that there's a hiking and biking trail within walking distance.  The section of the Simon Kenton trail that I was on was deserted so I didn't go too far on it (for safety reasons I don't like to be TOO alone when I'm alone) but I enjoyed my brief time there.

After the run I was wheels up.  My first order of business was to find out what the internet wouldn't tell me.  I visited the Champaign County Historical Museum to find out the connection between Urbana in Champaign county in Ohio and the twin cities of Champaign-Urbana in Illinois.  

The staff laughed when I asked.  They told me that for nearly every inquiry that they get they have to clarify whether the question is for Ohio or Illinois.  The explanation is very simple, way back when some folks from Urbana, Ohio moved to Illinois and took the name of their town and county with them.

With the mystery solved, I made tracks for Yellow Springs.

Yellow Springs is a cute little town with a few blocks of cute little shops.  One resident of Yellow Springs that you might have heard of is Dave Chapelle, who does shows here and has also bought up quite a bit of real estate.  There's a big stink about that, which I believe has to do with increasing property values, but every article was either behind a pay wall or required disabling my ad blocker, so I skipped the research.

I took in the eye candy and then headed for my ultimate Yellow Springs Destination.  Glen Helen Nature Reserve (within walking distance of downtown) is where the famous yellow springs are - look if a town is going to call itself Yellow Springs you know there are going to be yellow springs.

The reserve is huge and I wasn't sure exactly where the springs were.  But there was plenty of leaf peeping to be had.

I heard running water and found a non-yellow spring.

I'm glad I didn't know at the time that the yellow springs were immediately to the left, because that would have shortchanged my experience.  I turned right, which turned out to be the long way around the loop, and I was rewarded with some serious eye candy as a result.

Helpful instructions.

A surprise hawk.

Yeah yeah I know my shutter speed is too slow...like I said it was a surprise hawk.  There's still something that I love about this picture in spite of it.

And finally the trail looped around and I arrived at the yellow springs.

Orange springs?  Rust colored springs?  Whatever, it's worth the hike.  I'm just guessing but I think it was about a mile.

I decided that I'd gotten all that Yellow Springs had to offer for a first visit.  The next item on my agenda was more burial mounds.  I figured that I could hit up at least three of them to fill out the rest of the day.

The nearest one was Indian Mound Reserve a few miles away.  Based on my extensive experience of having visited two mounds I figured it would be a quick in and out.  Mound Cemetery in Marietta is in the middle of a small cemetery.  Shrum Mound is right by the road.

Indian Mound starts you off with a waterfall.

And then a reeeeeeeeally long hike in the woods.  I didn't start my Garmin until late in the process, but I'm guessing it was about a mile and a half in distance.  It was gorgeous, and the further I got the more invested I was in getting to the mound.

When I saw the steep stairway, I started to add up my activities for the day - the run, the roaming around Yellow Springs, the hike at Yellow Springs, and the longer than anticipated hike to get to the mound.  Lol so much for not overdoing the hiking on this trip.  

Somehow the climb was a lot easier than it looked from down below.

Now to go back.  The trail wasn't well marked, so I got a lot more of a walk than I was bargaining for.  But also leaf peeps so I wasn't mad.

Indian Mound took way longer that I anticipated so I decided that further mound explorations would have to wait until my next trip.  And I'm OK with that because I got a lot of this.

I got back to the Airbnb around dinner time and planted myself in a comfy chair.  The more I thought about it, the chair was very comfy and had a very small footprint.  Last month when I was going through all of the Work Drama, I decided that if I got a raise I would get myself some kind of a comfy chair for my office, if I could find something small enough to fit the space.  Well well, this chair might just fit the bill.  I turned the footstool over and saw exactly what I wanted to see: an Ikea part number!  That was mighty convenient since I needed to go past the Columbus Ikea to get home.

Sunday - homecoming

I treated myself to another walk in Urbana on Sunday morning before packing up.  I did a short hike at a nature reserve and then stopped by the Piatt Castle for a self guided tour.

And then I headed back to the big city and did the Ikea thing.  I wanted to take a look at the chair in the store before I committed, and I wanted a few kitchen odds and ends.  Sure enough I liked it just as much in person.  They didn't have all of the parts in stock, so I placed my order in the store, lol when you buy a $400 chair and a $3 drying mat - both will be well used in years to come.  This is what I got and it is everything that I wanted it to be.

And with that Leaf Peep 2023 came to an end.  Until next year!

Let's Wrap it Up

• Deciding to make a weekend trip to a place you've never been when you're not 100% sure if you want to go: 10/10.
  
• Yellow Springs as a tourist destination: 10/10.  My primary rave is the hike at Glen Helen Springs, but obviously if you like cute little town shopping, you'll enjoy it even more.
  
• Staying in Urbana, Ohio: 10/10 even if you didn't grow up in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois.  It's a very cute, walkable town.  Huge props to the staff at the museum.
  
• Collecting ancient burial mound visits: 10/10.  I can't explain why these are so fascinating to me but it looks like I have a new hobby!  There are several other sites in the area, so I'll definitely be back.
• Having the intention not to overdo the hiking and ending up with a 25,000 step day: inevitable.
  
• This would be an excellent place to bring a bike.  Both Urbana and Yellow Springs have hike & bike trails.  The only reason that I didn't bring the bike is that it was on the cool side and rainy.

That's all for this round of adventures.  Thanks for hanging out and letting me relive it.  This might be my last solo trip of 2023 (unless the weather decides to be gorgeous for camp weekend in November).