TRAVEL DAY: BRUCETON MILLS, WEST VIRGINIA TO REEDSVILLE, OHIO.
Day 28 – At a little after 7 a.m. it was 34 degrees and sunny. Daylight Savings Time granted us an extra hour. The campground emptied out fairly quickly; the weekend was over. After dumping tanks, we departed McCollum Campground at Coopers Rock State Forest, and once again drove the road which was meant for only one vehicle at a time, yet vehicles were coming in the opposite direction, too. Crazy. It was 10:25 a.m.
We headed west through northern West Virginia, crossing the state going up and down WV hills the whole way. Most trees had dropped their leaves, or what was left was brown, although we did see a few nice fall colors remaining. Traffic was light.
We crossed the Ohio River and entered Ohio. At that point there were a lot of industrial buildings and refineries. Soon thereafter, we turned down a smaller road that traveled along the Ohio River. It was scenic and went through a few small towns.
We arrived at our campground at 1:10 p.m. There was no one working there to check us in, so we just proceeded to the site we’d reserved, #25, thinking we would make lunch right away. We were hungry but hadn’t seen any place for the last hour where we could safely pullover and eat. We had never been to this campground, Forked Run State Park near Reedsville, OH, before. When we saw the campsites, we were surprised at how narrow and short they were, let alone how slanted they were. We could barely fit in the RV; the width of the vehicle was almost exactly the same as the width of the campsite pad. A batch of wood blocks was used to level us, yet again. No wonder hardly anyone was camping here, LOL. The RV closest to us had to be parked with its front wheels off the ground. The site was so slanted that we had to add a set of steps beyond the normal 3 steps we climb to get into and out of the RV. Once we got into the site, we made a late lunch and set up camp. Almost immediately the RV was inundated with Ladybugs outside, and some had gotten in the RV. Better than spiders, I guess. After lunch we got our workout climbing down from the RV, LOL, and we drove the campground loop to check out all the campsites. This was the only loop that was still open – November through April are off season here. On the way back to the RV, we passed the empty playground. Empty of people and children, but NOT empty of strange fruit. We had to stop to get pictures of all the “fruit” on the ground, approximately grapefruit-sized, and a picture of the tree the fruit had fallen from. Then we got an additional workout, climbing back into the RV. Exercise done for the day, ho ho, we relaxed. The high today was 58 degrees.
Rob checked online to identify the strange fruit. Turned out it was the Osage Orange, or Horse Apple tree. It yields a 3-to-6 inch diameter bright yellow green fruit. This fruit is typically not eaten by humans, and rarely by foraging animals, giving it distinction as an anachronistic “ghost of evolution”. Settlers used the tree, pruned to a bush, to fence in free-range livestock before the invention of barbed wire. (from Wikipedia)
For more detailed information about Forked Run State Park,click here.