By Elijah Simms
Senior, English, IUPUI
If you’re anything like me, the coronavirus, and the quarantine that came with it, has got you feeling a little disconnected from the outside world. Just a little over a month ago I was going to school four days a week to finish my last semester at IUPUI and graduate this May with a degree in English. Over the course of a week, I went from having somewhere to be every day to having nowhere to go outside of my one-bedroom apartment. It was a surprise to me just how quickly I began feeling so shut in.
As a kid, I grew up at a lake house with my parents in Crawfordsville, IN. I spent my summers boating and swimming, but mostly playing video games and watching movies. I thought I excelled at being alone or on the couch in front of a screen. Maybe I underestimated the impact that going out to restaurants, bars, and movie theaters had on making me feel alive.
During the isolation of the past month, I’ve had the irresistible desire to escape into nature whenever possible. In part, it is a way to get more exercise now that all the gyms are closed; another reason could be that it is simply something to do. But I think that the biggest reason to explore more of nature has simply been a reminder that the world still exists outside the walls of my apartment, and that during a crisis, such as the one we are all going through, nature continues on, unfazed. And so, having little to do and way too much time to do it, I decided to take a visit to a national park in hopes that it would cheer me up.
The day before making the drive to the Indiana Dunes National Park, I called the visitor’s center to see if they were open. The woman who answered my call assured me that they were, but reminded me to “Keep a six feet distance from others,” -- a mantra we are all aware of at this point.
My girlfriend, Taylor, and I left at noon and began driving North on I-65. The streets were emptier than normal for obvious reasons. The first time we drove under a flashing warning sign on the highway Taylor, who was driving, read it aloud. “Stay home except for essential activities.” We spent the next few minutes trying to convince ourselves that going to the park was “essential.” We landed on it being “essential” in the same way that liquor stores are “essential” businesses – we all have to find some way to spend our time and have fun when everything else is closed.
Upon entering the park, we were met with what we had come to expect over the past month: the visitors center was closed, the club house was closed, the bathrooms were-- surprisingly open, but by the time I would sit down to write about this experience, the Indiana Dunes website had added a notice that the bathrooms had to be temporarily closed. We drove past an empty pay booth (admission to most parks is free for the time being), before parking in a lot by Lake Michigan Beach. We could hear the waves crashing on the shore before we got out of the car. The lake’s vivid blue water was cutting through an otherwise drab, gray day.
The park was mostly empty. A couple held hands and walked a golden lab on the beach. Two women stood at the top of a large dune with a toddler. We could tell by the 10 or so cars in the parking lot that there weren’t many more visitors in the park. Were people afraid to come out, or was it the cloudy day that had kept them home?
Taylor and I talked to the couple with the dog for a moment (from six feet away) about what made them come out. She was a nurse who just had her first day off in four days and was wearing a black Under Armor hoodie with the hood up to block the wind. He was an assistant manager at a local restaurant, wearing a plaid red button up that was too tight to keep the grey long-sleeve shirt from bursting through between the buttons underneath. Up close, I thought they looked to be in their mid-30’s.
“She’s working ten hour shifts, and I’m losin’ my mind with nothing to do,” he said, kneeling down to pet his dog. The restaurant had been shut down for more than two weeks.
“Things haven’t been so bad,” the woman said, “We’re all waiting for it to get worse.” She was probably just glad to have some time away.
We said goodbye and thanks to the couple, then walked around the park for a while longer. The dunes were desolate, yet beautiful. The rough strands of grass that could survive in the harsh environment were beaten down and shaped by the winds that came off of the lake. A wall of sand had formed from the tide (in some places as tall as 5 feet) that separated the beach from land. We saw only three other visitors.
Later that week, Taylor and I visited Turkey Run State Park. It was a park I had visited with my family once a year as a kid. Nine of their 11 trails were closed, as was the restaurant, the visitor’s center, the cabins that I used to stay in, and basically all other facilities. We walked both trails (one a half mile easy trail and the other a two-mile rugged trail) in about an hour. At one point as we walked between the two trails, a group of five, presumably high school boys, rode through on their bikes. They were yelling and laughing and seemed completely unaffected by this general sense of gloom and unease that had infected so many people over the past month.
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I’m glad I was able to see some parks while they were still open. According to the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA), an organization that monitors national and state parks around the country, 212 of the 412 park sites are completely closed temporarily due to the pandemic. Many others are partially closed. I phoned 26 Indiana state parks (a list of them can be found here), and found that all of them have at least some trails still open.
I thoroughly enjoyed my time at the two parks, but I would be lying if I said that we can’t have similar experiences closer to home. A few days after my trip to Turkey Run, I called my best friend since high school, Steve, and finally agreed to go fishing with him. He had been hounding me about fishing for years and, even with the temptation of drinking beer in the morning, I had always said no. Despite growing up on a lake, I had never had much interest in fishing, but now seemed like the right time to try it.
So the next day Steve and I met at my parents’ house. He brought two poles and I borrowed two camping chairs from my parents which we set up on their dock overlooking the lake, and threw out our lines. The few hours we were outside we didn’t catch much (three Bluegills and a Striped Bass), but we did catch up on each other’s lives. I was thankful to have some time with him, and to be able to experience a place I had spent so much time at growing up, in a whole new light.
If you can’t go to a park or don’t want to risk it, I suggest just going for a walk or a jog through your neighborhood. Take up a new hobby like fishing, birdwatching, or canoeing. The Indianapolis Canal Walk and parts of The Monon Rail Trail are still open, at least at the time I’m writing this. Eagle Creek Park and Holiday Park’s trails are still open too, though Indy Parks And Recreation recommends visiting other parks in the state to alleviate crowds. If you can, bring along someone you care about.
There’s never been a better time to get in touch with nature. After all, what else are you going to do?