Yellow Springs, OH

One of many trees decorated with knitted/crocheted swatches

Even the telephone poles had fabric wrapped around them

And to go even a step further, there were crocheted blankets for the rocks.

Everything deserves a little love :)

What hippie town would be complete without a tie-dye shop?!

Sam, along with our wonderful hosts for the weekend, Chrissy and Joe

Notice the unfinished bridge we are about to cross

Making our way from one side of the bridge to the other

Looking down at the end of the bridge

Yellow Springs!! It's actually more orange, but when the rocks dry they look yellowish

Another pretty waterfall

This scary looking owl was right in front of my face

Welcome to Hippie Town USA! Sam has a couple friends who live in Yellow Springs and invited us for the weekend, so we had a fun-filled couple of days dodging rain clouds to see the sights....and what interesting sights there were! It's really a quaint, charming little town, with lots of historic houses and unique stores. Very different from any town I have visited, which made it so much more fun to explore and take pictures! Walking into downtown Yellow Springs, the first thing I noticed were the "knitted trees" ~ lots of tree trunks covered in handmade swatches of yarn and fabric. Charming yet puzzling at the same time. My jaw just about hit the sidewalk when I saw telephone poles and ROCKS also covered. If that doesn't say tree-hugging-granola-munchers-live-here, I don't know what does! Ha! I saw the Tie-Dye gift store on our last day and had to take a picture. Again, this is apparently a town where the demand for tie-dyed items is so great that it needs an entire store devoted to just that :)

We spent Saturday afternoon hiking in Glen Helen Park. Our tour guides, Chrissy and Joe, took us on a beautiful hike through the woods to see the actual yellow springs the town was named for. A teenage girl stopped to taste the water said it tasted like a penny...look again at my picture of the putrid orange water and you'll understand why I took her word for it! Really, someone would try it?!?!? But it was cool to see and then we hiked further to look at another cool waterfall. I'm big on waterfalls, so it was well worth the occasion rain shower :)

After the waterfalls, Joe insisted we see the "Raptors" kept in the woods. Now, I know dinosaurs are extinct, but I was game for anything. Turns out, it's an animal rescue sanctuary with mainly owls and yes, a couple "raptor" birds (birds of prey) that looked like vultures. I was peering very closely into one of the cages looking for the owl supposedly on display, but didn't see anything, so I turned away. Just then, I hear Sam, Joe, and Chrissy say "look what was right in front of your face!" and there was the owl sitting in the front corner of the cage, just inches from my nose, yet somehow I completely missed him! Wow! I'm lucky to still have my nose :)

Enjoy the photos of Yellow Springs, OH and plan a day trip to go hiking when the weather is nice. I can't wait to take my bike back and try out the many bike paths I saw!