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My husband and I were supposed to go on a cruise to celebrate our 5th anniversary, but obviously that was cancelled. We wanted to get away, and get a break from our toddler, but we were stumped. Where to go? My husband pitched me an unconventional idea. Let’s stay in an RV, he said.
I’ll admit, I was a bit of a hard sell. When I think of romance, I don’t think of camping. But my husband is persuasive. I hadn’t been camping in at least 10 years, and I had never stayed in an RV before, so I didn’t know what to expect. I searched AirBNB for an RV and we picked out an RV park in a part of Ohio we hadn’t yet visited and we set out on our adventure!
Getting there is half of the fun right? We hadn’t ventured to this part of Southern Ohio before, so we decided to take our time driving out to MOCO RV Park. We love to find random places to stop on the way. When else will you get the chance to see Big Muskie’s bucket? I’ll be honest. I didn’t even know this place existed until we saw a sign. Some of my favorite travel experiences have started with my husband seeing a sign and insisting we stop and check it out.
This is the bucket of an excavator that was used for mining in Southern Ohio. My 6’ husband is providing scale, this thing is truly massive!
After we finished checking out Miner’s Memorial Park, we found ourselves at MoCo RV Park, our home for the weekend. Since I had never stayed in an RV, I didn’t really know what to expect. I couldn’t believe how nice the RV was! Our RV was fully stocked with everything we needed to relax and enjoy our kid-free weekend. We definitely were not roughing it! Our RV had a queen bed, a fully stocked kitchen, a TV, a table and 2 recliners. The table could be converted to a bed if needed. We did not need.
We went into town to get some supplies and take out and settled in for a quiet evening. My husband and I love board games, but we are super competitive, so we’ve agreed only to play cooperative games to save the peace. It was nice to listen to the rain hit the camper, and enjoy each other’s company. I can’t remember the last time I just relaxed and listened to the rain. It was also a huge bonus that no one was asking me for fruit snacks. We dozed off listening to the sounds of the crickets rather than the sounds of the city.
I’ve never had a recliner while camping before. This is so much better than sleeping on a lumpy air mattress. ©Emily Householder-Stacey
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The next morning, we decided to venture to Marietta, Ohio, a small town right on the Ohio River. We walked around downtown, browsing the stores on Main Street and enjoying the beautiful views of the Ohio River. We also visited the Ohio River Museum. My husband and I both grew up in a small town along the Ohio River, so we really enjoyed learning more about the river’s history. We went on a guided tour of the steamship, WP Snyder. We walked up the street to the Campus Martius Museum, which focused on the experiences of the people who lived in Ohio when Ohio was still considered “the frontier.”
We toured this steamship at the Ohio River Museum, and then we gave thanks for modern technology. ©Emily Householder-Stacey
The next morning, we set out for Hocking Hills State Park. Hocking Hills is best known for its caves. We hiked on 2 trails, The Old Man Cave Trail and Ash Cave Trail. The Old Man Cave Trail involved a lot of steps. I’m admittedly not in the best shape so it was quite a workout! My legs hurt the next day. Old Man Cave is the most popular of all the caves at Hocking Hills. There is a very nice visitor center at the trailhead. The trail to Ash Cave is wheelchair/stroller friendly, so if you don’t feel like having a “leg day experience” that trail is your best bet.
We ended our day with an evening at a rooftop patio, enjoying views of the Ohio River and stuffing our faces. After all, we had just walked like 3 miles. We had earned this.
Old Man’s Cave is called that because a gentleman named Richard Rowe lived there. Ohioans are great at naming things.
A local church used to hold services at Ash Cave because the acoustics rocked. Get it? Rocked.
Monday morning, we packed up and headed to Grandma’s to pick up our little man. On our way home, we stopped for a picnic lunch in Belmont County Ohio. We picked up some Ohio Valley Style Pizza at Dicarlos and took it to a local park to enjoy our last kid-free moments.
I’ll be honest, when we set out on our RV adventure we didn’t really have a plan. We just wanted to spend some time alone. I wound up googling things to do the next day each night, which is very unlike me! Sometimes, the best trips are the ones where you don’t have a plan and you just see where the road takes you. I would stay in an RV again. It was less expensive to rent an RV on Airbnb than to get a hotel room, but we had all the modern amenities we needed to be comfortable.
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When You Go:
Want to check out Southern Ohio for yourself? To get here from Southern California, your best bet would be to fly into Columbus Ohio and rent a car. From Columbus, you can easily drive to all of the places Bruce and I enjoyed, and you’ll drive past some beautiful scenery too! If you do venture to Southern Ohio, you might want to bring an old school GPS, or a map, there were lots of areas where we did not have any cell service. And look at the route ahead of time, my trusty Garmin accidentally took us off-roading in my Ford Focus.
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We too have thought about renting an RV for the first time this year. It would be a great way to travel slow and enjoy stops along the way. It sounds like you made it into a romantic getaway. But I do believe you can make most experiences romantic with some work and focusing on each other.
Renting an RV was something different for us. For my husband and I at least, we seem to have the best times when we do something new. Anytime we have kid free time, it counts as romance at this point haha.
Wow! That’s super cool. As a toddler parent I can imagine your disappointment when your cruise got cancelled but this looks super cool. I wouldn’t have planned something like this for an anniversary but it has turned out so much cooler!!! Ash Cave looks gorgeous. Good idea of the church to use its acoustics. RV with a queen bed and recliners?? Ofcourse Romance can definitely come alive in an RV.
There’s even a rock there called Pulpit rock, I’m sure you can guess why. I’ve heard that the local township even used the cave for meetings sometimes. It was a big bummer to have our cruise cancelled, but, I know that a lot of people are dealing with cancelled trips right now. As I admitted, an RV was not really my idea of romance either. But I was pleasantly surprised.
I have been contemplating the RV idea for quite some time. will give it a try to find how romantic it is for us 😉
I hope you like it! The RV park we rented from was a smaller park, I think that helped. Less people running around.
RVs are so cool right? And around a fire, out in the woods can be so romantic! Especially when you have a comfy bed and a tall glass of red 🙂 sounds like you guys had a blast!!!!
I really grew into the idea of going around in an RV when I visited New Zealand and have been considering going on an RV trip ever since. After reading your experience, I too might just consider it for our anniversary! I have been to Ohio but didn’t know about Ash Cave, seems like a fascinating place! You sure had an epic road trip – the map and that starry sky says it all!
It’s so sweet of your husband to still come up with this plan. We on the other hand, just dropped the idea and simply celebrated at home. By the way, thank you for sharing this post. You just inspired us to take a weekend trip.
Covid changed plans for all of us but I am glad we were able to at least do sometimes. Spending a weekend in RV sounds so romantic! Since I’ve seen those cars I’ve always wanted to own one and travel around the world in it. I’ve never been to Ohio but the river side sounds so nice ! It’s nice that you were able to take that hike and then enjoy nice rooftop views 🙂
I’m glad you enjoyed your romantic getaway in an RV. Just the two of you, without having to listening to people talking from the other rooms. 😉 And all the visits you made along the Ohio River sounds wonderful! I hope to visit the caves in the future. It looks cool!
I loved your hubby’s idea to spend a romantic getaway in an RV. It must be really too romantic to have the natural sounds of raindrops on the roof of your RV. Good to know you were brought up in small town near river and wanted to know about river history of Ohio river. Old man’s cave too look great place to visit here.