Brown Country State Park

Indiana is a great place for fall leaves - gorgeous! That about sums it up ... but, there is a place just south of us, about an 1 1/2 hours away that is 'known' for its leaves in the fall, so we decided to go check it out. It is a great state park - one that I think we'll go back and spend some more time at. There is a lodge and cabins with an aquatic center and lots of hiking, biking and horseback ridding and summer camps in the summer. Since we only had an afternoon, we decided that this time we'd do a little, 'easy' .75 mile hike with the kids ... (This is at the entrance - a covered bridge!)
Isn't it incredible?!
I've never been in a deciduous forest like this - hardly a pine tree in site - it was so beautiful, and peaceful to watch the leaves fall and hear the wind move the trees. I've seen it plenty of times in the movies, but it really was incredible to experience it.
Well, about 2 hours later and many hills and ravines later, we realized that we'd gotten on the wrong trail ... apparently we ended up on the 'rugged' 2.2 mile trail, not realizing this until it was too late to turn back. I knew we were in trouble when we passed a man hiking the other way and asked how far to the trail head, and he responded 'you'll have plenty of daylight to finish'! Master S and Miss Lilly were troopers and did awesome, Big D on the other hand was not. At one point he was screaming and throwing a tantrum (what am I saying, I think that was the whole last half of the hike), so J.D. put him on the ground, where he threw himself back on the leaves and screamed. A group of young Japanese students were behind us and came up to him on the ground and kind of circled around him and pointed at him, commenting on how cute he was ... ha, ha! Wish I had a picture of that! Big D was not so amused. J.D. definitely got his workout for the day in, because he just wanted to be held (it was nap time) and didn't want me ... amazingly! Thank heavens J.D. was there with us. But, we made it and if nothing else now know that we can take the kids on that kind of thing and survive!