Hocking Hills State Park

Last week my family and many of my wife's relatives vacationed in SE Ohio, in a region called "Hocking Hills." Among the activities in which we engaged was a trip to Hocking Hills State Park.

The state park contains quite a few "things to see and do" (check out the link above), but my family focused on three of the obvious ones: Old Man's Cave, Cedar Falls, and Ash Cave.



Old Man's Cave is not a subterranean cavern, but rather the result of erosion of softer rock beneath harder rock, resulting in very large overhangs above hollowed out areas. This part of the state park has a variety of features and is very picturesque. The stream that moves through the area also flows over multiple waterfalls.


About two miles away on foot is Cedar Falls. This is a large and beautiful waterfall that also features some of the same erosional rock features as the two caves.


At this point our family got adventurous and, instead of driving three miles to Ash Cave, found the Buckeye Trail and hiked there. This was a pretty easy trail to hike, though we were getting weary on the return, mostly uphill, trip. Along the way, there is a fire tower, which I and various others took the opportunity to climb.


Ash Cave is enormous. Its upper lip sticks out roughly 100 feet above the bottom, and a small stream sends a long fall of water into a pond below. It is easy to see why it was a site of Indian encampments, since it provides a great deal of shelter against the elements. Once again, erosion accounts for the unusual rock formation.

If you ever get a chance to visit Hocking Hills State Park, I encourage you to do so.

Oh My, the Hypocrisy!

Do you remember not that very long ago, when congressmen and congresswomen berated the car company executives for flying private jets to Washington D.C. (so that those same congresspeople could berate them for other things)?

Do you remember that even more recently, large banking companies' executives were blasted by the congresspeople for their lavish lifestyles on the company dime?

Then this article might make your blood boil when you read about the outrageous and expensive trips taken by many of our members of Congress. Some facts and statistics from the article:

The spending on overseas travel is up almost tenfold since 1995, and has nearly tripled since 2001, according to the Journal analysis of 60,000 travel records. Hundreds of lawmakers traveled overseas in 2008 at a cost of about $13 million. That's a 50% jump since Democrats took control of Congress two years ago.

The article also states that expenses are up 70% since 2005, when it became illegal for lobbyists to fund such travel. Who's paying for all this travel?

The congressional trips are possible thanks in part to an unlimited fund created by a three-decade old law. Nearly two dozen government officials work full-time organizing the trips. Much of the costs are not made public, including the cost of flying on government jets. The Air Force maintains a fleet of 16 passenger planes for use by lawmakers.

Documents obtained by the Journal show that the cost of flying a small group of lawmakers to the Middle East is about $150,000. Larger trips on the Air Force's version of the Boeing 757 cost about $12,000 an hour. Two federal agencies pay for most of the travel -- the Defense Department and the State Department.

Yep, that would be us, the taxpayers. That's at least $13 million, plus the undisclosed flight costs. I didn't highlight those numbers above just because statistics amuse me, either.

Where are your Congresspeople going? I'm glad you asked. Here are some examples.

• "In mid-June, Sen. Daniel Inouye (D., Hawaii) led a group of a half-dozen senators and their spouses on a four-day trip to France for the biennial Paris Air Show. An itinerary for the event shows that lawmakers flew on the Air Force's version of the Boeing 737, which costs $5,700 an hour to operate. They stayed at the Intercontinental Paris Le Grand Hotel, which advertises rooms from $460 a night." They also met with some presumably important people and declined to comment for the WSJ article.
• "In February, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi led a delegation of Democratic lawmakers to visit U.S. troops in Afghanistan for a day. Before landing in Kabul, the eight lawmakers and their entourage of spouses and aides spent eight days in Italy, spending $57,697 on hotels and meals." Her spokesperson added that she also visited the pope while in Italy.

A number of the trips have been to Iraq and Afghanistan, which seems a bit more in line with their official duties, and where the hotels don't cost much (VIP's rarely stay in those countries overnight). But this one has to be the worst example of pork-filled travel in the article:

Last summer, Rep. Brian Baird (D., Wash.) took a four-day trip to the Galápagos Islands with his wife, four other lawmakers and their family members. The lawmakers spent $22,000 on meals and hotels, records show. Mr. Baird, a member of the House Science Committee, said the trip was to learn about global warming.

On the first day, lawmakers toured a breeding center for giant tortoise and land iguanas before dining with scientists, according to an itinerary for the trip. The next morning, lawmakers headed to the Galápagos National Park while their family members had the option of hiking, swimming or shopping. That afternoon, the group boarded a boat to visit a sea-lion colony and search for white-tip sharks.

Ridiculous!