Making Room for More Wild
- 11 minutes ago
- 5 min read
What happens when we set aside time for a little more adventure?
Life gets busy. It's ridiculously easy to fall into the same routines, take the same walks, and keep telling ourselves we'll do something fun when we have more time. But more time isn't guaranteed. Sometimes, you have to make room for it.
I think we may have started something.
After our little adventure to Kennerdell, Pennsylvania, I came home with a thought that just wouldn't leave me alone:
I want to take these dogs places.
Not necessarily big places. Not necessarily far-away places. Not necessarily places that require a packed cooler, a GPS, and an emergency backup GPS because apparently I no longer trust myself to find my way anywhere.
Just ... places.
New places to sniff. New trails to explore. New sounds to hear. Different ground beneath their feet. Different people, different smells, different scenery.
Because dogs don't experience the world the way we do. A walk we've taken 47 times might be pleasant, but for them, the scent map is probably starting to feel a little like reruns.
Give them a completely new environment, though, and suddenly every tree has a story.
So we're going Day Trippin' with Dogs.
And our first stop?
Clary Gardens right here in Coshocton, Ohio.
A little garden. A lot of history.
If you've never been to Clary Gardens, you might drive past the entrance and have absolutely no idea what you're missing.
Tucked into the hills of Coshocton, Clary Gardens is a 20-acre botanical garden that's free and open to the public. There are formal gardens, ponds, a rose garden, a children's garden, an amphitheater, historic buildings, and walking trails.
It's beautiful.
But the part that really grabbed my attention — especially after spending time in Kennerdell — is what's underneath it all.
Literally.
Clary Gardens sits in a landscape shaped by water, erosion, and some very old rocks.
And when I say old, I mean “none of us were even a twinkle in the universe's eye” old.
The Woodland Trail winds through the hillside, where enormous sandstone outcroppings burst from the forest floor. Those rocks weren't placed there for dramatic effect — although they certainly look like somebody with a flair for landscaping decided the garden needed a few boulders. They're part of the area's natural geology.
Over an extraordinarily long span of time, erosion has carved away at the hillside, exposing the sandstone and creating little caves, crevices, and rock formations along the trail. After heavy rain, water can even cascade over the formations as seasonal waterfalls.
And suddenly, you're not just walking through a garden.
You're walking through a little piece of Ohio's geological history.
And then there's the water
Clary Gardens has natural springs — a lot of them.
According to local historical accounts, the property is believed to have around 30 natural springs. Those springs were part of what made the site useful long before anyone was planting roses or planning wedding photographs.
There's even a historic springhouse on the property.
Before electric refrigerators became a thing, springhouses provided a naturally cool place to keep food from spoiling. The cold spring water running through the structure acted as Mother Nature's refrigerator.
The property also has a fascinating human history. The area around the springs was known as a Native American camping ground, and the springs provided an important natural water source. The springhouse itself dates to somewhere around the 1830–1850 period.
So now we've got geology, water, history, plants, and wildlife all layered into this one little hillside.
And we've barely gotten to the dogs.
Meanwhile, back on the trail ...
Pike and Gus, of course, were considerably less interested in my geological observations.
They had important dog business to conduct.
There were smells to investigate. Leaves to inspect. Trees to interrogate. And apparently every few feet required a thorough review by the Department of Extremely Important Dog Noses.
But that's exactly what I wanted.
I didn't take them to Clary Gardens because I needed to put another walk on the calendar. I took them because I wanted them to experience something different.
The terrain was different.
The smells were different.
The sounds were different.
Even the way they moved through the woods was different from our usual walks.
And I could see them taking it all in.
That's the part of this new adventure that matters to me.
Why Day Trippin'?
One of the things I love about living with dogs is that they have a way of reminding us that the world is much bigger than our routines.
We go to work. We come home. We take the same roads. We walk the same paths. We do the same things.
And then the dogs look at us like, So ... what are we doing today?
Maybe we should listen.
Day Trippin' with Dogs is my little experiment in doing exactly that.
We're going to find new places — close to home and farther away — and let Pike and Gus experience them.
Some will be hikes.
Some might be parks.
Some might be small towns, outdoor attractions, historical sites, or places we've driven past a hundred times without ever stopping.
The goal isn't to rack up miles.
It's to expand their world. And maybe ours, too.
Because here's the funny thing about finding hidden gems: Sometimes you don't have to go looking very far.
Sometimes they're right in your own backyard.
Sometimes they're 20 acres of gardens tucked into a Coshocton hillside, hiding sandstone cliffs, springs, ponds, history, and a woodland trail behind an unassuming entrance.
And sometimes they're two dogs standing in the middle of it all, noses working overtime, wondering why you keep stopping to take pictures.
Clary Gardens was a pretty great place to start.
Next stop: wherever the road — and the dogs — take us.
Now it's your turn
You don't have to travel halfway across the country to give your dog a new adventure. Find a park you've never visited. Walk a different trail. Explore a nearby town. Sit somewhere you've never sat and let your dog experience all the new smells.
Go somewhere new. Let them sniff everything. Make a memory.
Then come back and tell me where you went.
Because if Pike and Gus can inspire even one dog to get out and see a little more of the world, this whole Day Trippin' thing will be worth it.
Day Trippin' with Dogs is a new My Barking Life series about exploring the world with our dogs, one adventure at a time.
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