A Hiking We Will Go - Indianapolis Parks

I've always been lousy at keeping a diary and unfortunately, the blog thing is not going much better. I'm going to have to work on that, I admit.

Just to bring in possible readers up to speed (not that that will take much) I'm new to the worlds of hiking and camping, so this blog is going to be all about my various misadventures. My boyfriend and I have been doing the hiking thing now for a little over a month. He's trying to make a breakthrough as a nature photographer (see his work at http://www.photograp3r.com/) and I'm looking for a little natural inspiration in my artwork, so choosing to go hiking has been a real boon to the both of us.

Until this last weekend, we had been pretty much restricted to local area parks and nature trails, which don't get me wrong, Indianapolis has a great collection of! We've visited three parks so far. They are, Southeastern Park, Eagle Creek Park, and Holliday Park. All beautiful in their own distinct way. I have been doing some photography of my own (not nearly as good, but I hold my own), concentrating mostly on floral and fauna. Of the three parks we have visited in Indy, I highly recommend Holliday Park, which I mentioned in my last blog, as the most visually interesting, although Southeastern Park has some really nice creek bed areas and pathways. Unfortunately, Southeastern Park also taught me my first big lesson...Beware of the tall grass! I know, I know. It's something that's ingrained in most of us as children, but our first trip to Southeastern went on without so much as a hitch, so I just wasn't thinking about the possible repercussions of walking in tall grass near a creek bed until it was too late. My son was with us for this particular trip and had the most skin exposed. The chiggers found him an easy target!

Now I know some of you are screaming, why aren't you wearing some sort of bug repellent? We were. I had sprayed Deep Woods Off on my son and myself, but evidently wasn't as thorough with it as I should have been when I did my son. I came out of it with only a couple of bites. My son got them all over his knees! With a lot of restraint and a thorough shower when he got home, he was able to bring them under control and be rid of them within a week, but was none too happy about it. Needless to say, we have chalked this one up to experience and have tried to be more thorough in the repellent treatments ever since.