WE'RE SO LOST! 🤦‍♀️// Hiking Bernheim Forest in Kentucky #RVLife

So I've just woken up. I've got crazy hair. It's time for some coffee because today we have a very exciting hike planned. We're gonna be knocking out a little bit over 13 miles at a local park where there are giants. We're Lauren and Daniel, travel addicts, small business owners, and now full-time Airstream dwellers. We're on a mission to visit all 50 states in 365 days shopping 100% American made and as locally sourced as possible. It's our hope that as we share our journeys with you, you'll be inspired to wander local too. I love to make stovetop coffee. My grandmother used to make stovetop coffee growing up so for me it's just kind of been one of those things that I've done my entire life. She used to make Mustelo and I just remember the smells of the coffee and we'd have it after basically every meal. Get on there. There we go. That's good. All right we are ready to go for our hike and not only that y'all are gonna be really proud of us. We have actually figured out how to lock the Airstreams. Apparently lefty, locky, solid. In planning our trip to Kentucky, I asked some friends about where we should go. When someone mentioned a forest with wooden giants, I was surprised to discover that it was less than two hours from where I grew up. How did I not know about this? With over half a million visitors each year, the Bernheim Arbitorium and Research Forest has over 16,000 acres of land and is home to three wooden giants. It's the perfect place to connect with nature and tap into the wonder of your inner child. The trail is called Millennium Trail. It's set as difficult approximate time of completion is six to seven hours. Between 13 to 14 miles, there's a halfway point which is helpful here at mile seven near Paul's Point Circle. Considering most things are closed right now, I can't imagine there would be much there except for maybe some porta potties and things like that but that's about it. Because the forest is so large, we actually had to drive to the trailhead but it's hard to complain when it's this pretty. About to start our hike. It looks like there's a check in here before we get started and some instructions. Probably warnings, don't do this, don't do that, be more prepared than we probably are. That's just not us so we'll figure it out along the way. During the start of the trail, a fork in the road. The question is which way do we go? It's a little bit confusing here. The trail sign says straight ahead but it feels as if we're gonna go counterclockwise. We have to start off down this path. I'm thinking we just kind of Although we still hadn't found the start of our trail, we did find our first giant, Baby Nice. The giants found their way to Bernheim Forest for the garden's 90th anniversary. They were crafted by Copenhagen-based artist Thomas Dambo and are made from recycled materials including bourbon barrel staves, scraps from the Louisville Slugger Museum and fallen trees. The three giants who reside here are part of a fairy tale written by the artist that shares a Totally screwed up. Legitimately not supposed to see the giants until the very end of this journey. Giants here were supposed to be going down this trail but giants, bad sign, trail this way. So apparently we must have missed a left. This is not good. Um a good sign because that means our navigation skills super suck and if this is the last video of us well just know that that's how we went out doing what we loved but really sucking at navigation. Well we found our missed left. How far have we gone so far Daniel? Um we have gone 0.85 miles and this was at the starting point. It's camouflaged in you can barely see the entrance of the trail over there. There should be some kind of like welcome to Las Vegas signage out here or something so you can see it but there's nothing that's not our fault and there are some like yellow shapes on trees um and I don't know what that stuff means so if you're watching this and you know what like the different shapes are on trees there's like triangles and squares and rectangles and stuff please let us know because we don't know. It looks like it may get a little more rugged from here. There are over 2,100 different species of animals here and this is the first little guy that we've seen. Isn't he cute? One of the many pros to being in a park first thing in the morning is that there are so few tourists and you're typically one of the only ones on the trail. One of the cons to that of course is that you're the first one on the trail so you typically walk through a couple of spider webs every now and then and uh or like every five seconds like every five seconds so Lauren's resorted to using uh a stick to swat away any potential spider web threats I'm not as flexible as he is Okay, we made it. What do you think of that? It's so beautiful. Check this out. We made it to the halfway point. Check this out. I'm clocking in 7.64 miles and which is probably a little bit over but we took some detours but it is definitely time to grab a snack So we really like these little flip bars. They're made in California um and they're super yummy and you can actually understand what all the ingredients are on the back which is important We made it to seven but for us it's more like eight because we went wrong way first like 10 minutes that's okay Ah look a helpful arrow. This trail they defined it as rudimentary but seriously I mean I think this is as rudimentary as we've done before but it's really neat Shortly after the path was as clear as it had been all day. We got a genius idea to take advantage of it and jog but I think we're gonna have to work on our running and filming skills Okay so we got a little overzealous because we really enjoyed the running part of it and we lost our markings on the trail so we're now gonna have to do some backtracking and figure out where that offshoot was that we just missed. At least those little yellow markers are coming in handy. That's true. Good news we found it and we only had to walk back like five minutes. These triangles godsend but truthfully check this out it's like straight up and down. Nine miles in Yep got another 4.5 to go and then we're done Do you see the other? Yeah right there. I see that one. Do you see the next one? Yeah it's over here. The trail used to be here but now it's not. Man upstairs decided to turn this into an obstacle course because there's a lot of obstacles right now but that's okay that's why we're here we're gonna overcome those obstacles. We're just a little past the 10 mile mark and we have actually found a cemetery up here it's beautiful. Truth time. Throughout the first two hours I was looking down because I was worried I was gonna step on a snake or just I had all of these fears about just running into a snake. I don't like snakes and after the first few hours you kind of just say screw it you just who cares right? We just passed a couple of hikers I've already seen two snakes on the trail one of which was a rattlesnake and I'm fairly certain I saw a rattlesnake on the trail I'm gonna run the opposite direction as fast as I can after I grab Lauren of course but that's what's gonna go down. What does that look like? More stair master. Oh my gosh that is like the staircase of hell out there. I will say compared to our last long hike in Tennessee I think this one may be a little more challenging because the great thing about a hike to the top of the mountain is once you get to the top it's halfway there and all the rest is downhill I guess there are no mocking jays in this forest. Lost the trail but there's a handy sign here okay gotta piece together a little arrow there there we go it was like I think we're supposed to go this way so so dang tired seriously just because I can run far doesn't mean I'm any good at hiking. I actually suck at hiking but I'm working on it uh so that should be encouraging if you're watching this because you just have to start get out there explore you'll get better at it we're not like naturally gifted hikers by nature so you just have to start. Keeping going. We have officially done a half marathon and there is going to be no metal. I feel a little disappointed about this. All of the hills even to the end. She loves hills. I hate it if you're running. Don't you love hills? No. Don't you love hills? No. Yeah I think we've covered about 2,500 feet of elevation according to my watch and it just keeps going doesn't seem to stop but we're getting close to the finish and that feels amazing. Folks this is the truth of what that looks like after Daniel decided to do that. There's a million things I'm gonna blame it on but I've got nothing right now I'm just tired Oh poor map. Look at this. It's been left maybe somewhere around here um then we'll have to make our way up this road here and then back down no oh off shoot here then back down Honey the arrows are over here handy dandy arrows We're like 200 yards from the finish line. Thoughts? We showed up at a campground like this or hiking location and there were 10 hikes and you told us one of them was level difficult or extreme or dangerous. It's most likely the one we're going to sign up for which is what we did today. I think there are many hikes here so don't be discouraged if you see this and you're like there's no way I could do this because there are plenty of hikes in this beautiful park. We just oh we took on the most challenging hikes and now our legs hurt and we are ready for chill I can't believe he's jogging in the end. Which also means that we get to sign the board and tell them we did not die We covered 15.21 miles on a 13.75 mile hike and we are back to having the conversation about how crappy our navigation skills are and it took us almost seven hours 6.55. We'll get better at this but we did it and no matter how bad our legs hurt I feel pretty proud of us today Our day wouldn't have been complete without the chance to see the final giant Mama Lou Marie. As you can see she's social distancing right now but it doesn't make her any less magnificent. If you find yourself near Louisville Kentucky soon make sure you don't miss Bernheim Forest and her giant residence. Whether you choose a day of hiking like we did or just want to walk the one mile trail to see the giants it is worth the trip.