Indiana state parks and summer plans

I'm starting a separate blog to keep my travel reports separate from my odd news, political rants, and other weirdness on my main blog. I'll try it this way for now and see if I like it.

I'm still planning whether my biggest trip this year, probably in June, will be a two week tour of Spain or a half dozen different countries in Western Europe with stops in Rome, Paris, Amsterdam, Lucerne, and more. Either way I'm going to include some time on the Spanish island of Ibiza. It's a beautiful Mediterranean island that happens to also be the house/trance music Mecca of the world. The tour would be with Contiki. They specialize in tours for 18-35 year olds.

Then a couple days ago I realized I haven't been caving in seven or eight years. I don't mean caving like walking through a big, touristy, well lit cave for an hour or two. I mean the tours that are a few hours or more of hiking, climbing, and crawling. They're harder to find, especially if you aren't reserving a group trip. I did have some luck though. There's an overnight cave tour in Wyandotte and Merango caves in July, and a very cool sounding weekend called Crawlathon held once a year in Kentucky in January devoted to all skill levels of caving.

My latest road trips have just been little weekend afternoon runs to the nearby state parks. We've finally had some warmer weather in northern Indiana, so it's time to get out. So on Sunday, April 3rd I headed up to Pokagon state park. It was a nice day in the upper 50s though kind of windy. I hiked around eight or nine miles. The forest floor was just starting to get a little greenery and a few bushes and trees were budding. Pokagon has some wetland areas, and any of these spots where there was standing water, there was a loud chorus of countless frogs. I passed a couple dozen people on the trails, which is more than I usually see. People were just glad to be out in pretty nice weather after another Indiana winter.

This past Sunday I was at Chain O' Lakes state park. It was our warmest day yet, sunny and in the high 70s. There were many more plants sprouting and trees budding than the previous week, with the spring flowers making their appearances. I don't know what this park does with their water though. I didn't take my own because it's usually easy enough to find in the state parks. Not so here... in about six miles of hiking I found one drinking fountain which had no faucet and clearly wasn't functional. Then there were one or two water faucets outside... with no handles. The buildings were locked. So given the heat and lack of water, after a couple hours of hiking I had to cut it short. It was still a nice hike though.

Now I really need to take an overnight trip to Turkey Run or further south. It's just too flat around here.

If I can find the vacation time after my Europe trip, I'd really like to spend a few days in the Smokies too. I've got this urge to climb Mt. Leconte again. What a great hike... and this time I'll remember to take the camera!