Fall Camping at Chain O'Lakes State Park

A quick trip to return to a park from our early days of family camping

Sand Lake in Chain O’Lakes State Park, Albion, Indiana - October 2023. Photo by Sarah Styf

“Have you seen the weather forecast for this weekend?” my husband asked as he walked downstairs and into the kitchen.

“Yeah, the temperatures are supposed to drop, but we should be fine,” I said.

“But have you seen the nighttime temps? They are supposed to be 38.”

“Having second thoughts?”

“When have I ever chickened out due to weather?”

It was a fair question. And, truthfully, I could probably count those times on a single hand. But those few times had been extenuating circumstances and over the years we have learned how to mostly roll with whatever nature throws our way.

But we had another reason to second guess our trip; our son had sustained a football-related spleen injury less than two weeks before the planned weekend and we were doing everything we could to help him heal and keep his spleen. Keeping our active 12-year-old from overexerting himself was already a challenge. We were afraid it was going to be even more difficult at a campground with all sorts of activities to tempt his body into motion. But every time we asked him, he insisted that he still wanted to go. He wanted something that felt normal and he wanted to be away from home.

So while I enjoyed time off from my work while the kids were still at school and Jeff worked, I finished packing up the camper and preparing for a weekend away.¹

We love fall camping, but one of the disadvantages is the decreasing hours of evening sunlight. By the time we left our driveway, we were going to be arriving well after dark. Jeff fought through high winds as we drove from central to northeast Indiana, the remnants of heavy storms releasing the last remaining raindrops the closer we got to Fort Wayne. We arrived at a fully staffed but dark state park, with little ambient light to guide our way to the campground and then our campsite. I finally got out of our truck to shine a light on the site numbers at the back of each empty site, guiding Jeff back around the loop to the spot we had reserved a month earlier. With the help of our friendly neighbors, we parked, set up camp, made a quick but late dinner, and then sent the kids to bed while we walked both dogs around the cold campground.

The next morning, I woke up to the sound of gentle rain on our roof, both dogs panting over their fear of storms and their desire to go outside. I finally gave up our warm bed and walked the dogs, giving each of them a loop around a small portion of the large campground. I found the campsite where we had stayed with both kids when they were little, right across an open field to the playground.

When we first started camping with the kids, Chain O’Lakes had been one of the first state parks we had scouted out for our family. It was close to Fort Wayne, where we were living at the time, and it offered space for our two-year-old and four-year-old to play. While we had rented a canoe to take the kids out on the chain of lakes during one of our two trips to the park, we hadn’t done much else. All our kids were really interested in at the time was climbing and swinging and we were happy to oblige.

But as I walked around the campground with the dogs and looked at the trail map while cooking breakfast, I discovered a world that we had completely ignored ten years before. It was too cold for getting out on the lake and we had one kid who wasn’t allowed near an ore for another six weeks. I still wanted to see the park and visit at least one of the easy trails, so I urged my family out of the camper and into the chilly fall air. We finally drove to the beach, only to find the nature center closed. We found an open trail circling around Sand Lake, one of the ten lakes that make up the literal chain of lakes in the state park. We took it easy and didn’t rush it, hoping it would help our injured kid feel a little bit normal, even if the eventual mile and a half was probably pushing it.

After lunch, some time resting, and the arrival of Jeff’s parents from Michigan for a quick visit, we headed to the Stanley Schoolhouse, a one-room schoolhouse built in 1915 and now listed on the National Register of Historic Places. We just happened to arrive right before a naturalist presentation on foxes, one of our daughter’s favorite animals, so we enjoyed the presentation and quick tour before heading back outside into the sporadic weather.

We started a campfire with dreams of keeping it going all afternoon and evening, a warm respite from the undecisive weather that didn’t know whether it wanted to be sunny, overcast, raining, or windy at any given moment. When our injured son awkwardly stretched in the seat from where he was watching college football (we had to keep him still somehow) and experienced temporary sharp pain, we made the decision to pack up early and head home so we could be close to our doctors. While I did dishes, the kids made sure the fire didn’t go to waste, making the s’mores we were planning to make hours later. While disappointed that we were cutting our trip short by about fifteen hours, we knew that leaving was the right thing to do.

We loved our campsite and Jeff and I enjoyed our brand-new loveseat camping chair, perfect for fall and spring camping snuggles. A campground bonus? The camp store has a Little Free Library right outside, so I dropped off a copy of my book into the collection.

We didn’t regret the trip, even though the drive there was stressful, the weather completely unpredictable, and our son’s physical condition precarious. We needed a few hours where everything felt normal. Our family needed some time together that wasn’t centered around the television or the ability to just exile ourselves to our own corners. We talked, laughed, and relaxed. Our daughter spent time with her nose in a book instead of her phone. Our son got some much-needed low-impact physical activity, even if he might have pushed himself a little too far. And the whole family fell back into love with a state park that had faded from our memory.

And someday we’ll be back, because the lakes and trails are calling.

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1. I got a two-week fall break. Our kids only got one week and it was the week following our planned weekend trip.