I Love Vacation!!

I love VACATION!!!
As you know we were gone on vacation last week.
I posted a few clues here as to where we were going and...
Kris actually guessed it right!!! Great job!

We went to the
Turkey Run State Park area in Parke County!

(It's about an hour west of Indianapolis)

We had a great time with wonderful weather.
Only had rain one evening. Cool temps to start the week and hot temps to end. Perfect for hiking and then perfect for swimming!

If you live in the Midwest (or anywhere for that matter) I encourage you to try it out! It's like entering another world. Not typical Indiana hiking paths! You have to see it to believe it!

This is the bridge you have to cross to get to the hiking area!

It's crazy how cool the trails are.
The kids just go wild whenever we come here! Up this side and then up the other.
Always running ahead to see what's around the next corner.

Does this look like Indiana to you??
Trail #9 is my favorite. It's the first one we took this trip and totally ignored the "extremely rugged warning" Actually it was very dangerous at times esp. with kids and babies. It took us a couple of hours to hike but was soooo cool! I broke my toe a few weeks ago and hiked in flip flops (not so smart but worked!). My SIL slipped once with a baby strapped to her but She's really good at catching herself because the baby didn't even wake up!
Needless to say we were cheering to finally see the bridge again,
but would go do it again any day!

If you make it to The area
DO NOT GO HOME
without visiting Shades State Park
about 30 min. from Turkey Run.

We hiked trails 1, 4, and 5
Some say it's better than Turkey Run
and we also love that it's NEVER busy like Turkey Run is!

We did see plenty of Covered Bridges
and took lots of pictures!

They Played at the playground ALL. THE. TIME.
Our campsite was right beside the playground
which is perfect when camping with 13 kids under 11

On the down side we didn't eat a lot of evening snacks after 7 pm. For some reason the raccoons thought they owned the place. They would come within 2 steps of us. And I'm not talking about 1 raccoon I'm talking RACCOONS.... We would see 6-8 raccoons at any one time. Beside us, Behind us, Right in front of us. They didn't care what we did...
Anyway We still managed to eat plenty all the other hours of the day!!

And we swam several of the hot days.
The kids loved it.
***
So there you have it,
I LOVE VACATION!!!!

Visit Sarah here for more Things I Love Thurs!

PS. I have plenty more pictures and stories
to share with you over the next few weeks!
Stay tuned!