Hiking in the Kentucky Wilderness

While AJ and I were in Hawaii, we decided we might like hiking. We would drive our car to interesting sights and we would sometimes have to walk up or down large hills to get to the main attraction. We were quite the outdoor enthusiasts on this trip! Below are some photos from "hiking" on Maui!

Sunrise on Haleakala ( a volcano).

The sunrise we drove 1.5 hours and to an altitude of 10,000' for. Breathtaking!

At the Iao Needle. This is a volcanic core and the mountain
that used to surround it has eroded away.AJ being in a "car commercial."

A Blowhole, if you look closely, you can see how large this blowhole is, look at the little people down there looking at it. It would have taken us quite awhile to hike down there and I think it was out of my hiking skill range...The blowhole area was very dangerous. There were lots of memorials to people who had been sucked into the blowhole and drowned. As you can see,
we are obviously dressed for hiking!

Senior picture time at the blowhole!We saw gorgeous waterfalls.We drove on dangerous roads that were not paved and the road map said do not drive here, not a road. If we crashed we would have drowned... SO COOL!Haleakala from the forbidden road!

See we were very adventurous in Hawaii! I am so proud of us. Well I thought we had so much fun being outdoorsy in Hawaii, we would probably like it in Kentucky too...

On Labor day, it was quite cool here, so I thought this was the perfect day to go for a hike. I had it all planned out. We were going to go on a hike to Bridges to the Past and to see Tioga waterfall not far from our house. I didn't think it would be too hard because the trail was paved and handicapped accessible, this was perfect!

Well we get to Bridges to the Past and it's closed and since it is on Fort Knox, and it had big signs saying it was closed by the commander of Fort Knox, AJ would not let us do it. He said he couldn't be his own client! (If someone got caught doing hiking there, they would end up in AJ's office for legal help)! HA!

So AJ said he knew of another hiking spot, Jefferson Memorial Forest, even closer to our house. I though perfect, we will get to be outdoorsy again! There were 3 trails to choose from, a 1.25,3, or 6 miler. I made us do the 1.25 since we had never been here before. We started off on a 1.25 mile trail. AJ said we should be done in no time since it was so short. Holy crap, that thing was almost entirely up hill and then straight down hill! I thought I was going to die. It was so much harder than Hawaii. We were hiking on these things called knobs. I guess we live in the knobs region down here in Southwest Jefferson county! When we finally made our way back to the map, we realized on the back of the map board there were all these warnings to take a compass, flashlight, knife, water, snacks, first aid etc...

I can't believe we were such idiots. We had not gear, what if we had gotten lost, come across an animal, slipped off a cliff? I feel like we are lucky that we didn't turn into those snowstorm people in Oregon! I looked up what kind of animals and the most dangerous in the area is a bobcat. I am paranoid of bears, the website didn't mention bears, but you never know! We could have died out there. OK probably not, but next time, we are going to be prepared, if there is a next time...