After we were back home from our trip out east about 3 weeks, I got the urge to go camping again. We looked at our calendars and there were no good weekends available. Then the lightbulb came on and I said "We're retired. We can go camping during the week!"
As it turns out, weekdays are much more pleasant for camping. Fewer folks in the campground and on the trails. It's easier to get a good campsite. And this time around we got better weather.
We decided on a 3–4-day trip, someplace not far away. We looked at some state parks in Illinois that we'd not been to, but none really appealed to me. I suppose I might be spoiled after our last trip. Then I started looking at parks in Indiana. It turns out my buddy had never been to Turkey Run, so we booked a site and off we went.
Turkey Run is close, only about a two hour drive. I had not been there for years and for the most part I used to go there to canoe in the spring or summer. But the hiking is also nice, and with the fall colors just past peak, we had lovely scenery to enjoy. The weather was warm (in the 80s two of the days) and windy. The winds did die down enough for a campfire every night.
We had a strange encounter with a woman at the campground who assumed that we should have a bigger camper. Of course she wanted to sell us one. We told her no thank you, our little Gigi is just fine. We took along a new 10x10 awning that has the option to add sides to make a little more dry space in case of rain, and we added sides to the new 6x6 awning to replace the one that Hurricane Helene ate for breakfast back in September.
