Saturday was “my” day, and it was a pretty day, so I wanted to go hiking. I also thought eating in Amish country would be grand, so I looked for hikes in that area, and I landed on Mohican State Park near Loudonville. I had heard of the park before (they have a multi-day music festival there), but I had never been. I decided to correct that.

Mohican is about an hour and a half away, but the GPS took us along a bunch of pretty back roads, which had the advantage of confusing Mer as to where we were actually going. We got to the state park and started at the camp store because it was the first place I found, I thought there would be an admission charge to the park (there was not), and we bought a couple of candy bars to tide us over until supper. The camp store was, not surprisingly, near the campground of the park, while the hiking paths were a couple of miles off, so we drove there. It was “Smokey the Bear” Saturday in the park, so there were fire trucks, including sirens, on the campground side, so I was not too sad to leave those behind.

We stopped first at the “Gorge Overlook,” which gave a good view of the Mohican Valley. It was not dramatic in a cliff sort of way, but it was worth a stop. There are no trails at the overlook, so we got back in the car and proceeded to the smaller campground.

We got to a smaller campground that was near a modern covered bridge, and was near several hiking trails. I picked one that wandered along a branch of the Mohican River. The trail was pretty primitive and in rough shape in many places. It was pretty to be right next to the river, which is very shallow and rapid in places, but we were finally forced to turn around when we got about halfway to the bigger campground; there were several tress down across the trail, and it was not so pretty as to make it worth scrambling over them just to get back to the main camping area. Oddly, on the way back to the smaller campground, we ran into two guys, one of whom was wearing a CVCA shirt. He graduated in the 90s, but his younger brother was at CVCA during my first year or two. Small world.

Once we got back to the car, we crossed the covered bridge, as I would have to – it’s a covered bridge! On the other side was a trail called Lyons Falls Trail. Well, that settled it, especially when I found out there were two falls – Big Lyons Falls and Little Lyons Falls. We struck off on the longer trail that would get to Big Lyons Falls first. Along the way, we passed a bunch of Spanish speakers, including a nun in full habit. We figured that if she could hike this trail in a habit, we could manage.

Big Lyons Falls was interesting. As a falls, it was very small, being just a trickle that ran over a large cliff and onto the trail we were on. The real sight was the cliff itself, which was in the shape of a C, which made it seem bigger as it enclosed the trail on three sides, and gave it good echo acoustics. There was a long stairway (up, of course) away from the falls that took us to the Little Lyons Falls, which were also interesting. The little falls were an even smaller trickle of water, but it plunged into a small gorge, into which Mer and I climbed partway down until we both thought it safer to go back. Mer was a game soul.

The Lyons Falls path took us up to Pleasant Hill Lake, an artificial lake that was dammed by an earth dam on one end. There was a small overflow outlet that accounted for the branch of the Mohican River along which we had been hiking. We wandered around the dam area, and then went down the steep hill on the other side, pausing to be amused by two teens rolling down the hill for the fun of it. We took a path back to the smaller campground, and along the way heard a group of Christians across the river singing songs. The acoustics of the valley were such that you could hear them for a long time after we passed them.

 It was late afternoon when we got back to the car, so we decided to go find a restaurant. I used the GPS to find a restaurant with the word “Amish” in it, so we ended up at Mrs. Yoder’s Kitchen. We had been there once before a few years ago. The food was pretty good, although we skipped the buffet – it looked a little smaller than some we had seen in Amish country, and I did not really need to eat multiple servings. We did skip dessert since I wanted to stop at the Amish Door on the way home to get whoopie pies. Sadly, the GPS sent us way out of the way for some reason, but we eventually found our way when Mer remembered the name of the town in which the Amish Door is located. We got there about ten minutes before they closed, so the dessert day was saved. We got dessert to go and headed home. I liked Mohican, especially the Lyosn Falls Trail, but I’m not sure it demands a quick re-visit.