The Indiana Insider Blog

Fall’s Biggest Day – Halloween!

by on Oct 26, 2011

Posted in Camping, DNR, Fall Color, Family Activities, Festivals & Events, North

Indiana Tourism welcomes today’s guest blogger, Tim Cordell:

Tim Cordell - DNRTim Cordell is an interpretive naturalist at Potato Creek State Park. He has worked for DNR since 1978 at Potato Creek, McCormick’s Creek and Spring Mill State Parks. Tim plays an active role in the park’s resource management as well as running the nature center and park programming.

As the end of the fall color approaches and the days turn cooler, fall’s biggest day comes – Halloween. At parks, as well as in cities and towns, Halloween has become a major holiday. In fact, getting a reservation for a campsite on the weekend before Halloween at Potato Creek State Park takes as much advance planning as Memorial Day or the 4th of July. Not that long ago, I can remember people asking if the Park was even open after Labor Day. Now October weekends can be among the busiest of the year and visitors can enjoy a wide variety of special fall themed events.

For $2 you can show off your Halloween creativity in the pumpkin decorating contest

Potato Creek will be hosting several special programs this year in observance of the popular holiday on Saturday, October 29th. These programs include a talk on bats, spiders and other creepy crawlies at 9:30; a pumpkin decorating contest at 11 ($2 per pumpkin); and a costume contest at 2. A tradition of decorating your campsite with an array of Halloween themed items has developed on the Saturday before Halloween over recent years. The Friends of Potato Creek will be sponsoring a campsite decorating contest between 4 & 6pm.  Among the decorations you might expect to see are graveyards, monsters, witches and LOTS of Jack-O-Lanterns.

Campers let their "spirits" show and decorate their campsites.

The day’s events will be rounded out with a Haunted Campsite for a frightful good time.  There is a $2 donation to walk through the campsite area if you dare risk being amongst the frightful creatures camping there. Candy, snacks and prize drawings will be available.  Click here for more information and a full schedule of events planned.

While freezing conditions and wintry weather necessitates many facilities to be closed for the winter months, there are still things to look forward to even after Halloween. One of those is the peak of the waterfowl migration which normally occurs by mid-November. Fall’s biggest day may be Halloween, but the natural beauty of our parks and natural areas continues throughout the season and year. So when people ask me, “When does the Potato Creek actually close?”, my answer is  “It doesn’t”.

This concludes my fall blog series but you are always welcome to visit Potato Creek State Park or any of our wonderful Indiana natural areas in person during any season.  Each season has its own special attraction that is waiting for you to discover it.

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Written by : The Indiana Department of Natural Resources (IDNR) manages a wide variety of state-owned lands that are available for all sorts outdoor recreation activities. Staff are charged with managing and interpreting the natural and cultural resources of these sites, and with regulating lake and stream usage, fish, wildlife, oil, gas and coal and Indiana's archeological and historic resources. For more information about the DNR or careers in natural resources, visit dnr.IN.gov.