Out of Our Rut Blog Welcome Page

Welcome to the Out of Our Rut blog landing page.

Who we are:

We are a couple of former engineers that lived and worked in the Rochester New York area for over 30 years. When we were laid off from two different companies, one day apart, we took that as a sign to change things up. We had built a beautiful home on 50 acres and loved the place, but with plenty of time on our hands, we began to travel more and realized that when we were on the road for weeks on end, we didn't really miss all the “stuff” we had back home. Plus the work involved with maintaining our home and property seemed to be the only reason we would head back home. That prompted us to get out of our rut and sell 95% of our possessions and our home and move into our 38 foot motorhome and travel the country full time starting in June of 2016.

Chris and Jack Hiking in Washington State

At Pullout Along Rugged Oregon Coast

Our mission:

To explore the country with a strong bias towards outdoor activities. Our passions are hiking and geocaching with some mountain biking on the side. I am an avid photographer. I guess working at Eastman Kodak for 32 years had an influence in that. And while we live in a motorhome and stay in many campgrounds, we really are not campers. We seldom have campfires and don't have a corn hole game. We rarely stay at a campground for its amenities. We pick a place that is near where we want to explore. We think of it more like our home happens to have wheels and can move around. Our desire in these travels is to slow the pace. We didn't want to see if we could get to all the National Parks as quickly as possible. We like to keep a travel day to less than 200 miles and if the place warrants, stay for a week or more.

At Geocaching Headquarters in Seattle for #10,000

The blog:

For friends and family (as well as us) to keep track of what we have been up to, we have created this blog. It chronicles where we've been and what we've done as we wander around the country. Each stop along the way will, at minimum, get mentioned in the blog. Some longer stops in areas we enjoyed may get multiple blog posts in order to give that stop it's due. Generally the blog has lots of photographs as I find it difficult to eliminate photos I like. The blog will talk about the campground to some extent, but it shouldn't be considered a campground review. We seldom seem to exhaust the things we want to explore before we exhaust ourselves and need to move on. That means we may completely skip some activities or places in an area that others may consider essential. We look at that as a reason to come back in the future.

Pretty Sunset in Quartzite Arizona

At the Window in Big Bend National Park

This landing page:

The problem with just about any blog is that fact it is chronological. This is fine since that is how the events occurred in real life. But since our blog is so much about a given location, it can be difficult for somebody to find a specific blog post for a given location. I even find it a challenge to remember when we happened to be at a given location if I wanted to look something up. For instance, if someone asked about Twin Falls Idaho. I know we stayed there but it might take me awhile to figure out that we were there in June of 2017 to get them to the right post. If I could only look at a map of all the places we have stayed and have an easy way to get to the relevant blog post.

Since I already use Google My Maps to keep track of our locations, I have created a special map that has all of our stops since going full time. None of the routes are included in the map since that just seems to clutter it up and don't really add value. By clicking the link below the map, an interactive map with all of our stops will open in another window. It is then possible to move around the map and zoom in an area of interest. Clicking on any pin on the map will pop up the name of the location along with a link to the blog post(s) associated with that stop. Since I am nearly always 2 to 4 weeks behind in the blog, some of the most recent map points may not have a link to a blog, but they will in time. The GREEN pins are locations that happen to include one of our annual or yearly reviews.

So if you want to see what we found to explore in a given area, this should provide a much easier way to find the blog post.

Click HERE to open interactive Google map

Our Ninth Year of Fulltiming in Review

June 29, 2025 marks our ninth year of traveling across this wonderful country in our motorhome as full time travelers. The journey continues to be mostly fun and exciting although we still need to try to remember to not treat our lifestyle as a vacation. Generally, vacations are to a new area for a limited time period, and the urge is to try to squeeze in as many activities and sightseeing destinations as possible. So when we pull into a campsite in a new location for a week, the inclination might be to do a search for the top 10 things to do in that town and fit them all in. Since we are big into hiking, we often use AllTrails, or similar sources, to seek out the best hikes and work those into the plans as well. But our experience has been that maintaining “vacation” pace can work for a few weeks but it is next to impossible to maintain for 52 weeks a year.

We stayed well east of the Mississippi River this past year. The map below shows our route. (Clicking on the link below the map will open up the Google Map I created for the year and permit you to zoom and scroll to better see the route.) Sort of looks like a poorly drawn letter “Y”. I doubt we will ever choose our route with the intention of creating some interesting artwork, but who knows? We camped at 40 different campgrounds, Elks Lodges or parking lots over the past year. Several of the stops where at places we have visited before with the longest stop (175 nights) being at The Great Outdoors in Titusville Florida - but since we now own an RV lot in this resort, it will likely be a common destination over the winter months. Other repeat stops were simply because they are convenient overnight stops along a route we frequently travel.

Click Here to Bring Up Interactive Google Map of 9th Year Travels

Thirty-one of the stops were at places we have not stayed at previously. In all honesty, it’s the opportunity to see a new place that motivates us to continue the travels. We started out year 9 just a few weeks into our 2024 summer plans of visiting the New England area. Exploring the Green Mountains of Vermont, the White Mountains of New Hampshire and portions of interior Maine were quite enjoyable. The three months seemed to go by quickly.

Another month was spent heading south. We should have budgeted more than 8 nights in the Boston and Cape Cod area of Massachusetts but now we know of some decent Elks Lodges in that area to return if we want to explore more. Even some of the simple overnight stops provided for unique experiences. Frackville Pennsylvania was a nice location to get a free tour of the oldest brewery in the country - Yuengling. Even the small town of Wilson North Carolina had some of the most incredible whirligigs we have ever seen.

After our extended stay in Florida for winter, we opted to head through northern Georgia for some excellent hiking before a long stop in Cincinnati to visit with family and then up through Indiana and into Michigan where we end year nine participating in a Habitat for Humanity build in Marquette on the Upper Peninsula. It has been a full year!

Another style of map I create from all of our stops are “heat maps”. The first one shows all the states we have camped in over the past year. The darker shade of red indicates more nights while light red means we stayed fewer nights. We managed to camp in 18 different states. The second map shows a similar idea but includes all 9 years of our travels. With our stop in Rhode Island, we are now up to 45 states. Since our USA map is nearly completely filled in, I am including one more heat map that is divided down to the county level. We have bumped up our number of counties by 24 over this past year for a total of 295.

Heat Map of Year #9

Heat Map of First 9 Years of Fulltime

Same as Above but Broken Down to County Level

Like a good engineer, I have all sort of data that I keep track of from our travels. I don’t bother to include expenses that we would have if we were living a conventional life in a sticks and bricks house like groceries, dining out or sightseeing costs. But items related to a nomadic lifestyle are included. I have limited the table to just this year and the 5 most recent years to make the chart readable. Prior years data can be found in similar posts I have done at the end of June each year.

Condensed Stats for Last 6 Years

There really isn’t a lot of unexpected findings within the data. We drove the motorhome slightly more than last year but pretty much in line with our typical amount from prior years. Since we tend to enjoy staying at state parks, it was nice to be able to improve on our number of nights spent at them. One thing worth noting about our stays at private RV parks, when we purchased our lot at The Great Outdoors, we knew what the quarterly HOA fees and annual property taxes would be and they had provided what sort of rental income we could expect for our lot if we are not staying there for various times of the year.  Now that we have gone through a year of lot ownership, it turns out that our lot ended up costing us just under $23 per night (including electric) for the 175 nights we stayed there. That’s not bad for a place that has excellent facilities and charges $110 a night for visitors.

For the past few years, I have used our yearly reviews to highlight some excellent hikes or bike rides we have found over the past 12 months. (Our calendar year end reviews highlight our top places we stayed at if exploring by foot or bike aren’t your thing.) We managed to get in roughly 75 hikes over year #9. Chris and I looked over them all, remembering nearly all of them and each voted for our favorites. This year we came up with 8 of them that we feel deserve to be on our list. For each one, I’ll give an overview of the trail, a picture from it and a link to the blog post that fully describes the outing to better show why it made it to the list. In chronological order, here are our top 8 hikes/rides.

• Avalanche Lake Trail - Lake Placid NY

We tackled several nice hikes in the Adirondacks during the two weeks we spent in the area but Avalanche Lake Trail stood out with both its beauty and challenging terrain. There are a few starting points to get to the lake. We picked the one from the Adirondack Loj since it sounded to be the least flooded option during our stay. What started as a nice hike in the woods became steep around the 2.5 mile point as we climb over Avalanche Pass before heading down to the pretty mountain lake. You’ll want to continue along the challenging rock climb along the edge of the lake. There are assorted ladders and stairs in place to scale the larger ones. But the real draw for us was to check out the cantilevered platforms that are in place to get around the sections with only a shear rock face along the lake. Read the blog post, to discover the story behind their name - Hitch-Up Matilda’s. Our out and back hike came in around 12 miles but was well worth the effort.

Blog post with Avalanche Lake Hike

One of the Hitch-Up Matilidas at Avalanche Lake

• Newport Bike Path to Canada - Newport VT

While visiting the area of Vermont known as the Northeast Kingdom, we get the mountain bikes out and head north on the Newport Bike Path. It’s a pleasant ride along the shore of a large lake and in 5.5 miles, we make it to the Canadian border in the small town of Beebe. In a few more miles following a combination of bike paths and lightly traveled road we make it to the Haskell Free Library and Opera House. This is a beautiful old building that straddles the  border between Canada and USA. We did a little more sightseeing in the town of Stanstead before retracing our route back into Vermont and out campground. There are easier ways to visit the library but we really enjoyed the 25 miles bike ride and unique sights along the way. 

 

Blog post with Newport Bike Path Ride

Chris Straddles the International Border

• Devils Gulch Trail - Eden VT

A 4.6 mile loop with about 1000 feet of elevation gain in the woods of northern Vermont. Half to the hike is following the Long Trail which extends the length of the state from south to north. While the bulk of this hike was nice, it was the quarter mile portion near the mid point that made it special for us. The trail enters a small canyon area with lots of boulders and extremely lush vegetation at least when we were there. This section is dubbed Devil’s Gulch and was a really neat stretch of the Long Trail. It was somewhat challenging simply because of the wet and mossy nature of the area made for difficult footing but worth the effort to see. 

 

Blog post with Devils Gulch Hike

Chris Hikes Devils Gulch

• Lamoille Valley Rail Trail - Vermont

While staying in St Johnsbury for a month, we found several rail trails that were fun to explore. The LVRT stuck out as a more enjoyable bike ride with some beautiful scenery and unlike the Ammonoosuc River Trail and Presidential Range Trail, the LVRT does not permit motorized vehicles so the trail surface was excellent. This 94 mile rail trail runs the width of Vermont from Lake Champlain to St Johnsbury. We did two different 22 mile sections of the trail by bicycle and found all sorts of interesting things to see along the way. We started our visits at trailheads in West Danville and Hardwick but from our experience, any portion of this trail is likely to be wonderful. 

 

Blog post with first LVRT bike ride.

Blog post with second LVRT bike ride

 

Train Sized Covered Bridge on Lamoille Valley Rail Trail

• Penobscot River Trail - Grindstone ME

A privately owned but free trail system with a very well maintained 16 mile loop trail. Half of the loop follows the Penobscot River and is quite pretty. Since it is not a former railway bed, there are more hills than we originally expected but they were not too strenuous. There are intermediate connector trails along the loop so it is possible to shorten the ride if the full loop is too long. Near the halfway point is the Long Meadow warming hut. It turns out that this place is also used for cross country skiing and snowshoeing during the winter months. The hut is positioned to give a great view of Mount Katahdin. The return portion of the loop goes through the woods but is still a nice wide gravel trail. You can even show up without a bicycle and borrow one of their loaner bikes and helmets. It even sounds like they have cross country skis to borrow. The commitment required to develop and maintain such a wonderful property is what really appealed to us.

 

Blog post with Penobscot River Trail Bike Ride.

Warming Hut with Mt Katahdin in Distance

• Sentinel Mountain Trail - Baxter State Park Medway ME

Baxter State Park is the beginning (or end) of the Appalachian Trail so it is a very popular location for hikers. In fact there are some rather unusual rules and regulations within the park to limit the number of visitors permitted in various areas. We were not up for the extreme distance and elevation required to hike the last leg of the AT but we did find a beautiful hike to the southwest of Katahdin that seemed to be more within our capabilities. Sentinel Mountain at Kidney Pond Campground is rated as a moderate 5.4 mile out and back hike with a little over 1100 feet of elevation gain. The initial part of the hike is relatively flat along the edge of Kidney Pond.  Most of the climbing is required in a half mile section with an average slope of 24%. But once to the top of the mountain, there are some spectacular views of nearby mountains. 

 

Blog post with Sentinel Mountain Hike.

Nice View from Sentinel Mountain

• Table Rock Trail - Pickens SC

Located in northern South Carolina, Table Rock State Park is less than 15 miles from Brevard NC which happens to be one of our favorite places for hiking. It seems like we should have visited this part of the foothills of the Appalachians earlier. This trail is rated as hard with 6.8 miles and over 2300 feet of elevation gain! It was a steep and challenging climb to the ridge of the peak. There are several viewpoints along the easier terrain along this ridge with some incredible views of the surrounding mountains. Our timing was excellent by reaching the final viewpoint in time for lunch and to soak in the scenery. As we finished lunch, a cloud bank rolled in and shrouded the whole top of Table Rock in a surreal fog with almost no visibility beyond a few hundred feet. This is a tough but beautiful hike. 

 

Blog post with Table Rock Hike.

View from Table Rock

• Sittons Gulch Trail - Cloudland Canyon State Park Trenton GA

We had made a day trip to this state park back in the fall of 2021 and found one of our favorite hikes for our sixth year review, but this time we camped in the park so we could explore some of the many other trail options. Our favorite hike from the earlier visit was the West Rim Trail that follows the top of the canyon. We repeated that hike again but also did this trail which follows the creek along the floor of the canyon. At almost 5 miles out and back and just over 1000 feet of elevation, this hike is moderately challenging although the majority of the elevation is comprised of a metal staircase that leads down from the visitor center to the two beautiful falls before proceeding down the side of the creek. The water was flowing rapidly and it was nice to have the constant sound of rushing water for the full hike. Being at the bottom of the canyon makes it feel like a completely different environment even though we are within a mile of the other trail. 

 

Blog post with Sittons Gulch Hike

Nice Hike Along the Creek

Below is a map showing all 401 places we have camped at over the past nine years. Just below the map is a link which will open up an actual Google Map. Doing so will permit you to pan and zoom around the country. Clicking on any pin will pop up a window with a link to the blog post(s) for that location. If you are visiting an area we have stayed near, our previous posts may help you find interesting places to see - especially if you are into hiking, mountain biking, geocaching or simply to see some photos from outings we took while visiting. We do not do write much about the campgrounds we stay in so don’t use the blog posts with the hopes of finding campground reviews.

Click Here to Open Interactive Google Map of All Stops

We have some of year 10 planned out. After an excellent 2 weeks here in Marquette Michigan volunteering with the local Habitat for Humanity affiliate helping to build two different homes, we will be heading further west in the Upper Peninsula before dropping down into Wisconsin for the Oshkosh Air Show. Then we head into Minnesota for a month before starting our journey back to Florida for another winter season. No clue where next spring and summer will lead us.

13 Nights in Cincy

Map of this blog's locations click this link to open the map

After our overnight at the Cabela’s in Lexington Kentucky, it is only 110 miles to our next stop in the Cincinnati area at East Fork State Park. This tends to be a popular destination for us having stayed here twice since going full time and twice prior to our homeless travels. There are a few reasons we like this campground. First it is close to some of my family. With two of my sisters and several of my nieces and nephews in town, we enjoy the chance to have mini family gatherings. Plus I went to college in town so I am familiar with the area from 40 years ago and need to get my Skyline Chili and Graeters Ice Cream fix taken care of! We generally enjoy camping in state parks and this one is big with lots of trails, geocaches and campsites. Unfortunately, of the 400 plus campsites in the park, only 23 of them are full hookups while the others are electric only. Of course we didn’t make our plans early enough to snag one of the FHU sites. In fact, we were unable to score one site for the full 13 nights we planned on staying here so we were forced to reserve 2 sites - one for 6 nights and one for 7 nights. I suspect that our stay occurring over Memorial Day weekend didn’t help! It won’t be a big deal since the travel distance will be measured in a couple of miles and we will get a chance to dump our holding tanks midway.

Smokey Bear at Nature Center

It looked like the extended forecast had for a fair amount of rainy days, so we took advantage of our first full day being decent weather to get in a hike. Just up from our campground loop is Loop A which is the horse camping loop. There are 22 miles of bridle trails in the park and one of the main trailheads is out of this loop.

Bridle Trailhead

There are several dozen geocaches to be found along the horse trails but from past experience with hiking on them here, they can be extremely muddy - like suck your boot off your foot muddy! We figured that if we were going to be able to get in some hiking, we should try them before more rain moved in. We were able to just walk down from our campsite to start the hike. We discovered that the trails were in reasonably good condition and managed to get in around a 5 mile loop finding 13 of the 15 geocaches we attempted. That evening, we treated ourselves to a dinner at Skyline - the first of several stops here during our stay.

Wet Trail

Pond

We did get a fair amount of rain the next day so I was glad we managed to get some of the caches along the horse trails found. We spent a few days visiting with family. We had told my youngest sister to come up with a list of things she needed done around the house. We figured working on household jobs would be good practice for our upcoming Habitat for Humanity build we are scheduled for in late June. It was a varied list from some electrical changes, to woodworking, and simple moving of furniture. Nothing Chris and I couldn’t handle. I even was able to pull out my Tormek knife sharpener and sharpen all our knives. I must have done a good job since both my wife and sister nicked a finger in the next few days.

With another nice day of weather, we head out for a hike on a portion of the Steve Newman Worldwalker Perimeter Trail. This trail is 33 miles long and, as expected, goes around the perimeter of the state park. We know we aren’t doing the full trail, but we can walk from our campsite down the bike trail and over the dead end road that runs into a portion of the park before hitting a section of the perimeter trail. We had apparently timed our visit here to coincide with one of the cicada broods emerging from the ground. They were everywhere and in different part of the park, their noise was extremely loud.

East Branch Little Miami River

Cicadas

The part of the Perimeter Trail we took would lead us back north towards the campground area. This trail was pretty overgrown in parts and often wet and muddy but at least it wasn’t rutted up like the horse trails were. We came upon one group of guys with backpacks and camping gear. We suspect that they were going to take advantage of the Memorial Day weekend to hike and camp along this trail.

Overgrown and Muddy

Creek Crossing

We had plenty of geocaches to find along the hike. There is one cacher that has hidden the vast majority of ones in the park. He has hidden several thousand caches over the years so there is never a lack of hides to find when we revisit the area! Our hike came in at just over 5 miles and only got a little bit muddy along the way. Another 16 finds for us on this hike.

Another Water Crossing

We moved sites on the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend. Probably not the best idea since the park was nearly full and we needed to have one person move their truck for us to safely back into the new site but at least we dumped our holding tanks and refilled our fresh tank. A couple days later, we head out for another hike on a portion of the Perimeter Trail in a section of the park we have never visited before. The section is on the opposite side of the East Fork of the Little Miami River and was best accessed by Twin Bridges Road south of Williamsburg Ohio. It was a very rural area and the road ended at the parking lot for the trailhead. We never saw any bridges but a little research explains that there was a bridge over the river further along this road. But when the dam was put in back in the 1970’s, this bridge and many other structures were submerged. We start out heading south and find the trail in fairly good shape but definitely not as well maintained as more accessible portions in the heart of the park.

Tree Obstacles

We made it a little over a mile and found 4 of the 5 caches we looked for before we made it to a section we had hiked way back in July of 2016. We did run into one area where there was a large field that looks like it is sometimes farmed. We ended up losing the trail and sort of wandered around the perimeter of the field until we realized the trail goes through the field and is obscured by seeing so little foot traffic. The plan was to make our way back to the car and proceed to the north but I received a text from my sister asking us to come over that afternoon so we changed plans and went back to the rig to clean up and head out.

Where'd the Trail Go?

Creek Crossing

Trail Through Field

We spent a couple more days visiting with family before we get a chance to go out for more hiking, caching and sightseeing in East Fork State Park. The park was developed as part of the aforementioned dam built for flood control in the area. In all our times staying in the park, I can’t recall ever visiting the dam. It’s in the southwestern portion of the park and does require leaving the campground area and driving outside of the park to get there. Our first stop is at a parking area near the Perimeter Trail. Surprisingly, there are not all that many geocaches hidden on this side of the park, maybe that’s why we haven’t visited before?

Getting to the Trail

Nice Woods

It was a pleasant walk in the woods with a couple small creeks along the way. We found two of the caches without a problem but the one a mile or so down the trail was near a creek bed. The only problem was at the closest point, the trail was about 30 higher than the hide and with all the recent rain, the steep, rocky descent looked too difficult to attempt. The trail eventually got us down to creek level but now several hundred feet away. The creek was fairly low and there seemed to be enough rocks along the way to carefully walk up to the hide. It was slow going since it was quite slippery but we made it without twisting an ankle or worse. The cache was hidden just below a small waterfall and we found a side trail that made for a much better exit than walking the creek bed. We made much better time walking back to the car once all the caches had been found.

Large Mushroom

Falls Near Geocache

Rocky Creek Bed

We drive up to the visitor center for the dam and eat our lunch in the parking lot before checking out the displays inside. While the park is state run, the dam facilities fall under the control of the US Army Corps of Engineers. There are lots of animals from the area hanging on the walls as well as a fair amount of information about the development of the dam and how it is used for flood control.

Visitor Center

Assorted Animals Above

As we leave the visitor area, we see a sign for one of the boat ramps. We drive down and check it out. It wasn’t very busy but one guy was in the process of launching his boat.

Boat Ramp

Our last stop of the day was to the tailwater section just below the dam. This was not built for power generation so it is a rather simple design with a 40 foot wide, concrete tunnel sticking out of the earthen dam. There were a fair number of people sitting along the outlet with fishing poles hoping to catch dinner. The Tailwater Trail starts out of the parking area and had a few geocaches for us to find and we got in another 1.5 mile walk in the woods.

Dam Outlet

A View Down the Outlet

We were getting down to our final days at East Fork. Just down from the campground at its boat launch is the Fern Hill Trail. It’s only a 1.5 mile loop but does have 7 geocaches along it. We were wanting a longer hike so instead driving down to the trailhead, we decided to walk the mile and a quarter to Loop K which also has trail access. It was a nice peaceful walk in the woods and being a Thursday morning, there were no other hikers to be found.

Mini Mushrooms

When we got to the southern end of the loop, we decided to get sidetracked and see this boat ramp area. There were only a couple of boat trailers and trucks parked in the lot. One guy was just putting his boat in and we watched him for a bit. The boat ramp has a small dock to the side but this was a floating dock. That in and of itself isn’t too unusual, but the poles driven into the water had to be close to 40 feet tall. They seemed to be way too tall. We talked with the fisherman and asked him about them and mentioned that yes the water does sometimes get that high. We were even able to see rub marks on the poles way up there. I knew the Cincinnati area had a lot of flooding this past spring, but I had only seen video from the downtown area of the Ohio River flooding out parts of town. I latter checked out the COE website with the historic water levels for this lake. On the day we were there the water level was at 733 feet above sea level. But back on April 9 of this year, it was at 763 feet. A full 30 feet higher!

Campground Boat Launch

The campground beach area is nearby so we head there to see what it looks like and have our lunch we were carrying. It was clear that there had been a lot of flooding and signs that the cleanup was still underway with piles of driftwood all over the area. Thinking back to the day we sat there on the beach, it’s unimaginable to think this was under 30 feet of water.

Newly Place Straw

Campground Beach Empty

We headed back up from the beach and resumed our hike on the Fern Hill Trail to finish off the other half of the loop. It was a fun hike but the mile long walk back to the rig afterwards wasn’t the most enjoyable. In total we got in a little over 4 miles and found 7 caches.

Mini Trail Bridge

On our last full day, we had some family visit us at the state park. Since we were in the loop with the nature center and playground, my niece’s young children enjoyed a brief time playing with other kids from the campground. Of course, we ended up having a popup shower catch us off guard and we all got pretty wet before we could make it back to the motorhome. That evening, we met my sister and brother-in-law at Jungle Jim’s International Market for drinks. I’ve mentioned about this place in a previous post as to being a very unusual grocery store with aisles of food from all over the world - from ostrich eggs to alligator meat and just about anything else you may think of. It may seem like an unlikely place to meet for drinks, but their beer department also has a bar with a wide variety of beers on tap. The line on a Friday night was crazy long but it moved reasonably quickly and we had a nice time. On our way out, we wandered around the store some to see if there was something we needed that we would never find anywhere else. We did find one of the beers I used to drink during my college days but is very hard to find anymore - Little Kings. We discovered they have a large section of kitchen knives as well. The area wasn’t open this late in the evening but we could still look at the displays. Of the hundreds of knives, the one costing $599.99 caught my eye!

Expensive Kitchen Knives

Our next reserved stop was in far northern Indiana at Indiana Dunes State Park campground. Since it is over a 300 mile drive from the east side of Cincinnati, we had planned an overnight stop in Anderson Indiana - northeast of Indianapolis. Harrah’s Hoosier Park Casino Racetrack has a huge parking lot and permit overnight camping. There are no services or utilities but this should work out well for us. After pulling in, I headed out to find geocaches in some of the surrounding counties since we have never been to this part of Indiana before.

When I got back, we found one more Skyline Chili location nearby to get our last Skyline fix. Then we head into the casino - not to gamble but to just see what it was like. This one was like many we have visited with plenty of slot machines and all sorts of poker tables, roulette wheels and craps tables. We passed by all of these and headed to the racetrack section of the complex.

Harrahs Casino

They have a very large room with huge windows overlooking the 7/8 mile racetrack. Not knowing anything about harness racing, we sat and watched several races to get a sense of how it works. It was kind of exciting to see how the teams warmed up a bit before trotting behind a pickup truck with a starting gate attached. As they went by our viewing area which is the start and finish line, the gates retracted and the pickup truck sped off, and the teams flew by. There are lots of monitors showing the horses as they circle the far side of the track and the large display with the order of the horses and the announcer keep the people well informed. After each race, the winning team came over to the viewing area for pictures and the winning purse. Then the tractors went out and did multiple laps around the course smoothing out the track for the next race. It was neat to watch but we were not tempted to place any bets.

Inside Viewing Area

Approaching the Finish Line