Second time here!
Turkey Run State Park
Has an Inn from the Roosevelt era of New Deal State and National Park building projects. We stayed in the Inn the first time we were here a few years ago as well as camped in the campground and this time we got a cabin.
If you got a cabin, you also got to use the Inn's amenities.
When arriving on a Thursday night before Labor Day weekend that meant Liv and I had the whole pool to ourselves. An INDOOR pool nonetheless. During the time of Covid, that's been unheard of in our state, though, I've heard they're opening this coming week!
Our cabin.
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First morning, letting the kids sleep in, sat out at the firepit till the bugs got the best of me.
Fabulous, cool, sunny weather.
I love, love, love that only five hours south of us is this dramatically different terrain. You see, we're used to driving 10 hours north and not exploring anything like this. We're pretty much always going north or west in our own state...low and behold what five little hours south will bring ya!
One of the hardest parts of the trip was trying to keep this boy off the walls.
Wowza!
See William at the bottom right?
Day one we hiked Trail 6 behind our cabin.
Never got to that one the first time we were here.
Great hike with pretty empty trails still.
An exciting feature of this park is the suspension bridge.
One reason we came again was because we didn't get onto the water during our first trip and we planned to tube it this year. Bummer was that the term "low and slow" was thrown about at a lot of the tube rental places and also was heard, "we're not even renting tubes because the water's so low." )-: It was a bummer, but not a bust. The park has such incredible trails, waterfalls (light on water at this time of year), ladder climbs up the face of huge boulders, and of course the Punch Bowl and the Ice Box (just go and find out (-:) that you just can't be disappointed.
William and I on the veranda after dinner.
Loved writing that.
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Lara arrived Friday night after classes and flight instruction.
We planned to head to tubing Saturday morning but because of "low and slow" they slept in an I made my way through my 365 Days through the Bible readings (I was behind a few days).
I got a couple group shots of us.
(Notice how I expertly cropped out my long white socks, capri pants, black tennis shoes look . . . on top of the hat hanging from the water bottle holder, I can NOT believe at least one of the kids didn't inform me how ridiculous I looked! One of these days I need to stop and take a quick look in the mirror before leaving, wow!)
The kids though didn't like my approach to asking for photographic help, which I thought was perfectly appropriate:
"Oh, hi, excuse me . . . if it's not a Covid problem for you, would you mind taking our picture?"
One of them felt I didn't need to add the Covid thing.
One of them felt I shouldn't have my phone two inches from them when asking.
One of them graciously said nothing.
Haha!
So, so thrilled to have been able to find this time with Lara.
Been waaaayyyy too long!
Lara and Liv crossing the river with shoes off rather than risking the three foot wide suspension bridge walk with the hoards of people that suddenly invaded our tranquil paths on Saturday afternoon of Labor Day Weekend! Some were masked, William was, most were not. Here's hoping that fresh Indiana air kept us all safe & healthy, oy!
One of the "paths" while hiking trail 3.
Trail 3 has it's own t-shirts in the gift shop.
"Survivor" logo/font . . . "I survived Trail 3" being one of them.
I think Trail 3 took us between 2-3 hours, the end became a bit of a haze.
Did I seriously climb down the face of the cliff into the Ice Box, parched with jello legs, grabbing roots to get back out, at hour 2.5?
Yep!
Posing at the Punch Bowl. Last time we were here, it was empty and we splashed an frolicked in the actual Punch Bowl, this time, too many people and low, muddy water in the Bowl. All good though.
I have way too many of these kinds of pics for my own well-being.
Lara did end up scampering up right behind him seconds after this shot at least. Not sure how many people's hike was interrupted by "You come down here RIGHT.THIS.MINUTE William!"
Near the end,
after conversation was had about which Kardashian each member of our family would be, hahaha, the kids decided it'd be fun to "play mom" and look in awe at leaves with "the hat" on.
Headed back to the college town to wind down with some ice cream at a local fav.
Had it not been for my mild inkling to loose some pounds finally, I would have gotten a big ol' double of this baby . . . You Are What You Eat would have absolutely fit the moment!
I ended up with a carrot/mango freeze.
It was still good.
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Then today, back home, I got to make Ben's favorite meal, skillet goulash, with homegrown tomatoes and onions (which Liv and William said they were NOT going to like and ended up eating the whole "serves four"!) and snack on cucumbers and peas throughout the day.
Were there squabbles and nitpicking and "I'm tired's" and mosquito bites along the way?
Yep.
But you lace those with moments on the veranda, a quiet breakfast with just the girls, and all the rest and you've got a "New Kinda Labor Day Weekend!"
So Grateful Always.
Last minute addition:
Ben's Favorite Goulash
(Today I also used fresh basil instead of dried and it was great as was using fresh tomatoes. I read that two cups fresh, plus as much juice as you can save, equals between the 14.5-16oz canned. Sometimes I'll dice carrots into it because my memory sees carrots in my mom's goulash, not sure if that's accurate. I use a variety of different noodles, most often elbow noodles, again childhood memory)
