state parks project, part 25: brown county

We spent Sunday morning at Brown County State Park in Nashville. It's definitely one of the better-known parks in the state, especially when it comes to fall colors. But one thing I've found this year is that I really like visiting the parks in the off-season. There's something really charming about, say, walking through a desolate late winter forest. Probably a lot of it has to do with the lack of crowds, but that's no surprise to anyone.

For this visit, we chose the CCC trail because it has lots of stone steps and bridges built during the 1930s as part of the New Deal. Not to get too political on you, but I really love the idea of the CCC, along with the things created through the program. Planting trees, making trails, building things ... what an incredible way to help people and land at the same time. We have a CCC-built conservation clubhouse in Plymouth, and it's one of my favorite buildings.

The trail started with a long stone staircase leading down to a bridge over a creek, then a long hike back up a hill, then rinse and repeat. It started to rain just as we reached a lookout tower, so Mike volunteered to hike back to the van and come pick us up. Max went with him, so Liam, Henry, and I climbed the steps to the lookout tower and had fun exploring for a while.

It was a pretty quick visit, but there's actually a good reason for that: I booked a cabin later in the month, and the boys and I are planning to stay for a couple days with Laura and her kids. But since we started this project with the five of us, we wanted to finish it that way too.

So now we've hit our goal and visited all 25 state parks this year. It feels a little anticlimactic right now, but I'm sure once we've had a little time to reflect, things will look different.

See also: SPP1, SPP2, SPP3, SPP4, SPP5, SPP6, SPP7, SPP8, SPP9, SPP10, SPP11, 
SPP12, SPP13, SPP14, SPP15, SPP16, SPP17, SPP18, SPP19, SPP20, SPP21, SPP22, SPP23, SPP24.