I’ve been pingponging back and forth from Pennsylvania to Baltimore a lot recently, but this trip was alllll my boyfriend’s fault. (And I’m lowkey glad because somehow my reel about Ringing Rocks has over 1/2 million views on Instagram right now? Absolutely wild.)
Here’s what the driving day looked like:
We left the house around 6AM and first drove 3.5 hours straight to…
Hickory Run State Park
for two reasons:
- Ike’s agenda: the boulder field, which is a National Natural Landmark
- My agenda: the Shades of Death trail which I’ve had bookmarked forever
When we arrived, we immediately tried to find parking at the trailhead for the boulder field. There are lots on both sides of the road with maybe 20 spots each and they were totally full, and the Park Rangers were turning people away.
We headed to the Shades of Death trail to re-group and luckily sniped a spot, but this too was also super crowded but more manageable. There are porta-potty’s here, by the way.
This little walk is a 2.5 mile out-and-back through some woods, with a few of a couple waterfalls. We walked the road back to the parking lot to avoid the ton of people that had piled in behind us.
By the time we got back to the car, people were illegally parked everywhere.
We spoke to a Park Ranger who told us to go up the road to a double parking lot, which is a short cut to the boulder field we tried to visit earlier. And there are nice pit toilets here! After a what-felt-like-forever potholed one-way dirt road. Don’t worry, you really are going the right way…
After nearly breaking my ankle a million times, we headed back to the car and drove almost two hours to…
Ringing Rocks County Park
It was so freaking hot this day, I can’t even tell you. I feel like my tires could’ve melted to the road.
The parking lot for Ringing Rocks is basically within a neighborhood, so drive slow and be respectful of the people who live there. You can tell that a lot of people aren’t. The parking lot is relatively small and I bet it could fill easily, but I don’t imagine that people stay here very long. We were there on a Saturday afternoon and it was fine, but maybe the heat was deterring people. There are porta-potty’s in the parking lot which were actually really well kept.
The whole point of coming here is to bang the rocks in the area with a hammer because they make different sounds. There’s a short loop trail you can take to the boulder field, or you can just bee-line it there without doing the trail at all. Those white marks on the boulders are from where everyone has hit them over and over, over time. Isn’t that so cool?
Yes, we definitely packed two hammers from home so we could join the fun!
We headed home and about 90 minutes away, we stopped at the…
Shady Maple Smorgasbord
… which is the biggest buffet in the USA. Crazy. (Even though I feel like Bacchanal Buffet at Caesar’s in Vegas is bigger, but whatever.)
It was so good, and I was so full I felt like I was going to die, and then I had to drive us the rest of the way home haha.
They have endless fountains for soda, juice, coffee, tea, cappuccino, etc. They have every dessert you could ever find at an Amish Market and on-demand ice cream. There’s always fresh steak, fish, and other meats being cooked on the grill in front of you on-demand. There’s every side/carb/veggie you could ever imagine… it’s just wild. It feels like Las Vegas and the Cracker Barrell got married.
Caitlyn is outside. 
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