The Beautiful Mrs K and I hadn't been down to Columbia to see Hanna in a while. That made the decision to make our Sunday Adventure Series a "PLUS ONE" with her an easy one. We picked up brunch on the way to her house, devoured it, and headed off to Devil's Icebox.
An exceptionally gorgeous morning meant that this was going to be a great hike. It's adjacent to the Rock Bridge mountain bike trails, which I haven't seen in a while. It's not far at all from where Hanna lives, which is a bonus.
The small parking lot was rather full of people, but once we got into the woods it was pure wilderness wonderfulness.
Typical of all of our hikes, the Devil's Icebox is full of rocks and rock formations. Most of the trails we did today were ringed with a killer set of stairs. We could have walked up a bunch of different rocky trails, too, but we stuck to the stairs. It took us to a rather cool cave system.
Looking down as we approached the cave, we saw an awesome trench with rushing water. Super cool and a bit spooky to think about getting down in there.
Down the stairs went.
The stairs took us down to a larger trench, where at the bottom was an access into the cave. The water was rather high so we couldn't go very far in at all.
A super spooky panorama of the cave entrance.
I had to pose for an awesome photo, partially in the mouth of the cave. NOPE, not going in any farther. Maybe in another life.
After climbing out of the cave area, we went up and up and up so that we could see the sinkhole.
Not an adventure unless we take a selfie.
We kept going up.
The sinkhole was so underwhelming that a picture couldn't capture anything interesting at all. So we continued along the trail and as it started going down, we found the first of two silos.
Now, the silos were interesting. This first one, which Hanna climbed into, had as much graffiti on the wall as a college town could apply. This one had a roof on it so the floor was relatively clear.
Although having a case of the heebie-jeebies, she was able to stay inside long enough for a very dignified pose.
The second silo was 4 times as tall, with no roof. That meant the floor was disgusting, and there were some busted up tables and other items on the floor. But there were cool window-like openings on the way up, which made for a cool photo.
Hanna grabbed my phone and took this one, which proves she has a better eye for photos than I do. This is my favorite photo of the whole day, I think.
Scratch that, this is my favorite photo. We decided to climb the stairs one more time for some more mileage, then my two favorite women posed for me. Love.
Before we got out of the woods, I wanted to take a photo of my wonderful wife and her "Adventure Backpack." She packs this thing full of water, towels, phones, insect repellent, and the kitchen sink so that we are prepared.
After leaving Devil's Ice Box, we still had energy so we went to Stevens Lake Park for a more urban park experience. It's a pretty place with a great walking and biking path that circles it. After we finished there, we ate Mexican food, stuffed ourselves, and called it good.
We are so glad we could visit our baby's home! There are so many more things we want to do in Columbia, so we'll visit again soon.
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