Today, Kim and went back to a place we have enjoyed for years.

Kim and I used to spend quite a bit of time at Natural Bridge State State Park in Slade, Kentucky. We both hiked this State Park before we met, we came here on dates, and we returned on occasion with our growing family. We also brought my Mom here last August.

So, today, on my “day off” and before Kim starts preparing for her next school year, we headed to Natural Bridge State Park to put in some miles.

We LOVE hiking because it provides virtually everything we need to de-stress and get refreshed. We get exercise, plenty of fresh oxygen in our lungs, time away from technology and plenty of time with each other in the Lord’s creation.

We put in a few miles today, but hardly any of it was on level ground. It seemed that we were always either climbing or descending, so we got a good workout. I took some pictures and will share some of them below.

I took the following picture before we got too winded or sweaty. We had only been hiking for about 10 minutes.

About 20 minutes into our hike, as we had spent most of that time ascending and maneuvering around rocks, trees, and roots on the trail, the following stairway came into view. We were winded, but we conquered it!

Of course, I had to get to the top and take a picture of Kim making her way up he stairs. (I’m glad she was merciful and didn’t take any pictures of me when I was winded.)

This is a dumb picture but I think that virtually every guy that works out in a gym at least thinks of taking a picture similiar to this. LOL

The scenery was beautiful! And we didn’t mind taking a few periodic breaks.

We’ve been on top of the Bridge multiple times. We decided not to go to the top today. We rested under the bridge and then began our trek back to the Lodge by taking a different trail than the one we used to get here.

I love my wife! We had taken a break under the Bridge and were now setting out on the 1.75 mile trail back to the Lodge.

As you can see just up ahead of Kim, we had to duck to get under the rock and continue on the trail.

There’s really no way to take a picture of this “stairway” that gives you an idea of what it feels like to walk on it. It’s steep and somewhat slippery (sand and grime are present), there are not many places that act like handrails, and a fall could cause serious injury. But it feels good to do hard things and we conquered these stairs.

I’ve got quite a few more pictures but these give an idea of the joy we had hiking today. Hopefully, we can do this again in the next couple of weekends.

Here’s the map my watch created as we hiked.