Our Camping Trip to Indiana's Brown County State Park

This past weekend we went camping in the Brown County State Park, one of Indiana's most popular state parks. Even though I've been to Brown County, Indiana millions of times, admittedly I had never camped there.

If you want to read about our decision to go camping you can read all about it here. At the end of the day, I am so grateful we could go. It was a great time to get some fresh air, new perspective, and to successfully practice social distancing.

"Racoon Ridge"

We stayed at the "Raccoon Ridge" campground which, to clarify, did not have raccoons (or any that we saw). This is the campground the second closest distance to the Lodge. The Lodge normally has WiFi, a restaurant, and the Abe Martin Lodge...unless you go during COVID-19 and then none of that is open. That's just an FYI if you are going to be camping at a time when the lodge is open and you may need WiFi...Buffalo Ridge is the campground closest to the Lodge.

Anyway, our campsite had us park at street level and then our area for a fire, our tent, and picnic table were down a level with a little path. It was a wonderful spot and we were quite hidden from the road and traffic going by. We had two nice trees to string a clothesline from. Later on in the trip the kids hung their hammock there and had a nice afternoon activity.

There are two things that I find to be true: one, Camping is something I'm still not too sure about, and two, camping in an RV is not camping.

We tent camped to be clear on that. Tent camping involves a lot of gear and set up. I like the set up in that it gives our children the practice for life skills like pitching a tent, starting a fire, stringing a clothesline for drying. Those kinds of things.

I dislike the setting up because ineveitably your husband decides to not pack 25% of the items you had wanted (because there was no room, I get that) but doesn't tell you until you arrive and are looking for your extra table. Surprise! No extra table! You wanted a dutch oven? Guess what???

So there.

Why did we decide to go camping you may ask? Well, We were on a tele-call with Cal's therapist last week and she suggested we try to get him outside or somewhere we can let him run and burn off steam. So that was just what we did. It's hard to find any hotels open right now and since the weather has started to warm up, we decided it would be a great opportunity to get our camping gear out.

We spent a large portion of our time hiking.

If you are looking at going hiking at the park, we particularly loved this one hike we took: We started on Trail 4 from the south side of the Rally Campground Parking lot. We took the trail past Ogle Lake, into the Ogle Hollow Nature Preserve, and connected to Trail 5. We then turned right, headed south-west, and basically walked right up side of the ravine we had walked through. In total we walked about 2 miles and the trails were rated moderate and rugged. With 2 kids, aged 12 and 13 it took us about 2 hours. Our hike was incredible and afforded us a lot of exercise and fresh air.

It was so nice to be working towards a common goal, away from other people, in almost complete silence, and able to enjoy so many small blessings that God has created. Hikes are awe-inspiring when we find a jeweled colored flower or an interesting caterpillar.

I must say, there is something so ethereal to watch you children run through the forest with no care in sight, chasing caterpillars and discovering waterfalls.

Our campsite abutted a deep ravine and the kids loved spending lots of time traipsing down the steep sides, looking at moss, exploring what they found, and imagining about who was there before them.

They traipsed up the gourge one day, so excited about the waterfall that they had found. As excited as I was for their find, I was more excited that they had stumbled upon something they had recently lost:

wonder.

They had lost that trait where you are so excited about something that you have to tell everyone. That you can't put words together, it is so marvelous.

The next day after a long morning of hiking through the park, we set time aside for the kids to show us the waterfall. It was so quiet and peaceful.

In that moment I knew that all of the camping equipment, the cooking over the fire, the lack of showering for days...all of it is worth it.

The night before we were set to leave it rained. I don't think we were quite in torrential downpour territory but this was definitely no gentle spring rain, either.

Inevitably when you are camping all of your stuff ends up wet, your shoes end up squishy, and you have to stand because everywhere is wet to sit.

That did not make for a fun time packing up but amazingly we did it with no arguing, no fighting, we just loaded up and left.

We came home exhausted. My washing machine has been running constantly as we try to get everything to not smell like the outdoors and/or campfire.

But our hearts are full.

Our smiles are brighter. And we are carrying memories that can never be lost.

And most of all, we have wonder back.