Turkey Run State Park

Turkey Run State Park, Indiana
June 7-9, 2013

By reserving a spot fairly early in the year, we managed to get a campsite at Turkey Run State Park. The campground and the park were amazing, and the hiking trails were beautiful.  I will admit that some areas were a bit treacherous, only because we, as parents, were each wearing a hiking backpack containing a very heavy toddler - that can quite imbalance you - even when crossing a very shallow creek.  Luckily there were other family members and some very nice Good Sam hikers there to lend a hand.  This time of year, the weather is amazing and the park had many people, but didn't feel crowded at all.

Josephine shows off her "balancing" skills

Yes, there were moments that we stood around just trying to figure out where we were...

Then there were moments where we stood around just to take things in...

This is 'the look'

Our little spelunker

Taking selfies at lunch instead of eating lunch.

This is "The other look"

From Wikipedia:  

The Rosy Maple Moth (Dryocampa rubicunda) is a North American moth in the Saturniidae family. Males have a wingspan of 32–44 mm; females of 40–50 mm. They have reddish-to-pink legs and antennae, yellow bodies and hindwings, and pink forewings with a triangular yellow band across the middle. Males have bushier antennae than females. As the name implies, rosy maple moths mainly feed on Maples, particularly Red Maple, Silver Maple, and Sugar Maple. Sometimes the caterpillars become pests on maple trees. Adult moths do not eat.

This particular one was hanging out on our lantern.  HOW COOL!  And I love how you can see the camper in the background of that photo.

Somebody's butt... Oh my - that's MY butt.

I lens-flare-ya to look directly into that sunlight

The kids, playing in the dirt around our site.  In their defense, it was pretty exciting dirt.

More lichen while we're hiken.  Yes, it is the obligatory lichen with slightly out of focus family members in the background.  I just CAN'T EVER resist these shots.

No gold to be found, just a lot of Giardia spp.

"Look!  A treacherous path!  Let us head up there immediately while carrying young but preternaturally heavy children on our backs!"

Stayin' cool while checking on my hiking-mate.

The best posed family photo out of 15 that were taken this day.  Josephine looks fantastic.

We were tired out afterwards, but the trip was totally worth it.

For the record, the campsite was fantastic, #196.  It was an electric site (30 amp and 20 amp, I believe), no water.  It was very wooded, and it was pretty large, so even though there were campers across from and next to us, the site had a very private feel.  We ended up hauling buckets of freshwater and using a funnel to fill our tank.  This was in the early days before we had figured out that there is usually potable/freshwater to fill your freshwater tank with near the dump station of most state park campgrounds.  Oh well.  If it hadn't been for the typical day's arm workout from carrying the twins around, I might have actually been grateful for the killer arm workout...