The Newest Bark Ranger of Indiana Dunes National Park: Day 1

While Matt and I were exploring, we learned that not only are most of the beaches at Indiana Dunes National Park dog-friendly, but that they also participate in the Bark Ranger program!

And that's how one week after we returned home from our trip, I was pulling out my credit card to book an AirBnB for Will, Luna, and I to come back later this summer and have our own fabulous adventure. Because as much as my kid enjoyed 60 hours of screen-time without adult interference, she's also my best travel buddy, and Luna is hers. 

I packed only the essentials, as you can see.

We stopped at the visitor center so Will could see the museum, watch the informational film (I fell asleep during my own viewing of that film, so Will is now more knowledgeable about Indiana Dunes than I am!), and collect both Junior Ranger and Bark Ranger books:

And then it was off to Luna's first real beach!

Luna doesn't really know how to play, so once upon a time when Will and I took her to our local dam's spillway, we were absolutely delighted to see how absolutely delighted Luna was by the rushing water and the waves. She ran at them, leaped at them, snapped at them, barked at them--we had NEVER seen her act like that before, and would never have believed that it was part of her character if we hadn't seen it with our own eyes.

Will and I started dreaming, then, of taking Luna to a whole entire beach full of waves, but I'm pretty sure that when she snaps at the water she's actually swallowing it, and I worry about salt poisoning from seawater. But Lake Michigan is salt-free, and when Luna saw it--or rather, when she saw its waves--she lost her ever-loving mind:

With Will in tow, she ran up the beach and down the beach and up the beach and down the beach, barking hysterically most of that time:

Meanwhile, I hung out in a supervisory role:

When Luna had worn herself out so much that I was pretty sure she'd try to lie down halfway through the long walk back to the car (spoiler alert: she did!), we made the long walk back to the car, then hit up the grocery store, then found our AirBnb. This was my very first AirBnb ever, and it was thrilling. So much space! So many amenities! SO MANY TV CHANNELS!!! 

I mean, I know we came here to go to the beaches, but this Airbnb had Netflix AND Disney+! 

We Took the Dog to Kentucky Horse Park

While researching this trip, I came back to the Kentucky Horse Park FAQ several times, each time surprised anew to see that it STILL read that guests are welcome to bring their dogs into the park.

It didn't necessary strike me as a good idea, but whatever. They said we could, so we did!

Despite my misgivings that surely it's a TERRIBLE idea to take a dog (especially our dog, whose awfully great but sometimes acts greatly awful), to a horse-themed amusement park, Luna actually did pretty well. We first took her to the police horse barn, figuring that police horses are likely to be a steady lot, no matter what Luna took it into her head to do.

Because this was Luna's first time seeing a horse in person, at least under our care. So, you know, OF COURSE we had to do it in the world's largest, most expensive horse park. Of course we did.

She seems fine, though! Look at her--just happy to be out on an adventure, completely ignoring the genuine horse in its stall just behind her:

In the below photo, however, she has just embarrassed herself by barking at the draft horses pulling the trolley, so we're taking it in turns to do the trolley tour while someone else sits far away with her and puts peanut butter in her mouth:

After that poor showing, I refused to let Luna do either the Hall of Champions or the Parade of Breeds, instead sitting outside each arena with her, putting peanut butter in her mouth whenever she so much as looked at a horse. I did sneak inside the Parade of Breeds during the meet-and-greet, however, and Luna seemed fine, so maybe it's just draft horses that freak her out.

Luna even did the jump course!

So did this miniature pony:

I like the way that the Kentucky Horse Park organizes its day. There's a succession of shows, each one starting about 15 minutes after the previous one ends, so that you can walk from show to show and don't have to miss anything. Then there's a couple of hours with no shows going on, so you can eat and check out the museum and the barns without feeling like you're missing anything, and then they rerun the shows, but with some different horses, so you can go to them all over again, if you like, or, if you're like us, you can dog swap so that someone else keeps Luna well away from the thoroughbreds while you go look at them:

There are a couple of different horse graveyards on the park grounds. I'm pretty sure that we saw Cigar in the Hall of Champions show during one of our previous visits!

Here's the draft horse barn. I don't know why we took Luna here:

She was fine, though...

...well, until an actual draft horse walked by. Then she tried to run off with her tail between her legs so we noped out and went to eat some peanut butter.

Draft horse debacles aside, Luna had behaved well enough that we decided we could risk taking her to the afternoon Parade of Breeds, but only if Will sat on the ground with her and kept all her treats at the ready:

Luna's favorite foods are apples and peanut butter.

 This is our third visit to the Kentucky Horse Park, and every single time I come here, as soon as I walk in the gate I'm thinking secretly to myself, "Ugh, why did I come here? This is going to be so boring," and then ten seconds later I'm all, "OMG an APPALOOSA!!! COME HERE AND HUG ME YOU ANGEL I LOVE YOU!!!"

Here's my Appaloosa!

And quite a few more pretty horsies!

The Parade of Breeds is actually super interesting, because they'll send out a horse and ride in traditional costume for the breed, and then the announcer will tell you all about the breed while it prances around and looks pretty:

And there's usually something really unusual and unexpected. The whole crowd went "OOH!" when this carriage came rolling in!

Here's our good girl eating enough peanut butter to forget that the horse meet-and-greet is happening RIGHT BEHIND HER:

I really like to take the kids to new places, but there are some other places that I love to take them back to again and again, and here's one of the big reasons why. Here's Syd at seven:

And at thirteen!

Will at nine:

One of my all-time favorite photos of Will was taken at the Kentucky Horse Park when she was just six. Do you think it looks like she had a day full of fun?

I would say that fifteen-year-old Will had a pretty great day, too!

Dogs, Wildflowers, and Fossils at Hueston Woods State Park

It's one of the fundamental facts about me that I am physically, mentally, and morally incapable of taking my children on a vacation without making it at LEAST 75% educational.

To be fair, it's really more like 90% educational.

I'd tell you not to tell the children, but they're well aware of the score right now. They can even repeat for you my favorite saying, "The vacation won't be fun unless you study for it!"

So it won't surprise you that on this day in Ohio, the kids were expected to work on the history and geography of Ohio, botany, and paleontology. Mind you, I'd disguised all of this inside various Girl Scout badges and fun patches, because kids will do a LOT to earn a Girl Scout award, so they'll tell you that they were working on earning the Wildflowers of Ohio fun patch, the Buck"eye" Stops Here council's own badge, and helping Will research a possible idea for her Gold Award.

But just between us, it was the history and geography of Ohio, botany, and paleontology.

The night before this day at Hueston Woods State Park, Matt, champion of the world, had actually driven Luna to us in our Cincinnati hotel room, and then driven right back home again. He's basically the most awesome human being ever. But that means that on this day, we had Will's doggo with us, and the big plan was to take her on a big adventure exactly here:

It's a real, live dog beach! We'd gone to a dog beach without our dog back in San Diego last fall, and ever since Will has longed to take Luna, who loves the water, to one. Alas, neither of the lakes near our town have leash-free doggy swim areas, and the beaches both have signs explicitly forbidding dogs entirely. Will is contemplating trying to remedy this for her Girl Scout Gold Award, so this fun time with Luna totally counts as research

Luna was unsure at first:

And then decided that she really, really liked it!

She was a very happy doggo!

When Luna had finally worn herself out completely, we moved onto botany. The kids have studied photosynthesis and the parts of a flower, and so on this day I wanted them to work on identifying wildflowers in the wild and sketching them in their nature journals, paying specific attention to the parts of each flower that could be visually identified. You have to identify and sketch five Ohio wildflowers to complete that activity in the Wildflowers of Ohio fun patch requirements, so that was their goal:

Now that we're home, the kids will be spending some school time positively identifying the flowers in their field manuals, and refining and labeling their sketches.

After lunch and a visit to the nature center, Will and I spent the entire afternoon indulging in one of my most favorite pastimes:

Fossil hunting! Hueston Woods State Park allows you to actually keep the fossils that you collect there, and they have several really stellar places to look for fossils. By this time, Syd was super grouchy and tired and also has zero interest in fossils, the silly girl, so I actually let her sit in the car with the dog and the air conditioning for half the afternoon while Will and I hiked and waded and picked up stuff. We have a Prius, so it's kinda not 100% as bad as it sounds, but yeah, the state of my carbon footprint...

You do what you gotta do, though, especially with those thirteen-going-on-threenagers...

Anyway, Will and I had a marvelous time. We got pig filthy, and I kept picking up a piece of rock only to find something underneath that only didn't bite me because it was surprised, and also a few toads. We didn't come back to the car until I was half-sure that I had headstroke. It was glorious!

By the time we got back to the car, all Syd wanted in life was a freaking noodle cup, so Will and I packed our billion pounds of fossils into the trunk of the car and we drove a couple of hours due south into Kentucky. There, I unpacked my electric kettle so Syd could have her freaking noodle cup and enough free wi-fi to ignore me for the rest of the night in favor of griping to her friends and watching doll makeover videos on YouTube.

Yes, Syd, I KNOW WHAT YOU DO ONLINE!