Life & Times of Dave & Amy Latka: 2009

We spent most of Saturday, January 3, 2009 at Brown County State Park in southern Indiana. Brown County is one of the largest state parks in Indiana, being just under 16,000 acres. It is one of the many that offers camping and over 18 miles of trails for hikers, mountain bikers and horseback riders. The topography is very similar to the LaCrosse area of Wisconsin -- large rolling hills and ravines the continue southward all the way to the Ohio River.

While ultimately, we'd love to live close to our families in Wisconsin, there are definitely some perks to living in Indiana. For starters, notice that I it is January and notice further that I have on only long sleeve shirt and a fleece vest. Outside of a Packer game, you pretty much won't find anybody outside without a parka (and probably a shovel) in Wisconsin in January. Okay, so it is unusually warm here for this time of year. We don't normally have temps in the 40s and 50s in January. However, we're significantly warmer than Wisconsin (our home state) is. Down here in Indy, we get a lot of the warm and moist air brought up by the gulf stream. Temps are generally around the freezing mark. Its pretty nice because it allows us to do a lot of outdoor activities throughout the year and stay fairly comfortable doing them. Temps this weekend are so mild that Dave and I even considered going camping. If it hadn't been for the impending rain (which came as we finished our hike), we probably would have camped over night.

Anyhow, we hiked two trails yesterday (#8 and then #7). Number 8 goes through the ravines and climbs 300 feet to the top of the ridge. We stopped here to have a snack and enjoy the lookout at Hesitation Point (those are the pics with the views of the hills int he distance). It was fairly windy and chilly up on the ridge, but I still only wore my fleece jacket and hat. Once we were hiking again, I stripped back down to the shirt and vest. After trail 8, we hiked around Ogle Lake. Ogle Lake is a 17 acre lake with a 1.5 mile trail around it. We saw evidence that beavers lived in the lake somewhere as there were quite a few trees that looked like they had been assaulted by beavers. However, we were unable to spot a dam where they might be living. As we finished up our hike around the lake, it started raining. I'm glad we decided not to camp overnight. Chilly temps by the camp fire are not a problem, but its no fun in the rain.

Hiking on the ravine floor.