Day Six, Bloomington, IN: Hoosier National Forest

Today, I finally got the chance to do some real exploring and went backpacking through (a small part) of the Hoosier National Forest. There was nothing particularly spectacular about the forest itself; hills, trees, etc. It was nice to wonder around and spend the day doing as I pleased, with no gas tank to fill or maps to follow.

I had originally planned to spend the night, but decided that it wasn’t worth dealing with an incoming line of thunderstorms for the entire night. Apparently this decision has caused some controversy amongst some, (Jesgarz Brothers, this would be you.) My thinking is that there is no reason to camp out in a nasty thunderstorm when I can sleep under a nice roof. With air conditioning. I’m not too sure how often I’ll have that opportunity in the next couple months. And my Michigan body still needs a few more days to get used to these

An interesting thing about National Forests is that they are not National Parks. So people live there. At one point, I ran into a property marker and a sign informing me that if I didn’t have a card giving me permission to be where I was, (which I didn’t,) the police would be called. No thank you, turning around now.

To the left was the end of the line for the hike. I’ll be spending one more night in the city before heading to St. Louis on Friday. I’ll be in touch. Tonight it’s off to enjoy Thursday night bar night.