POST 30/2025 GOSHEN IN: Brown County State Park biennially over 22 years served up autumn delights for Marty and me in the company of our niece and her husband and their two children.

Rustic cabin. No phone or internet. Footpaths. Wildlife. Favorite meals (some out). Games (especially Pictionary). Wood burner. Fall colors. Day visits to points of interest in southern Indiana. All six contributing to a journal. Beautiful!

I plan to share bits and pieces from our journal in a few blogs. Just paging through the journal whets my appetite for a return visit to Indiana’s largest state park (15,696 acres, opened to the public in 1929).

Getting a reservation for 1988

I’ll jump in with my first entry from Saturday, October 27, 1990, recounting how we landed lodging for our first weeklong stay in 1988. (We did not keep a journal in 1988).

“The Brown County State Park saga began more than four years ago. That’s when I called to make a reservation for a family housekeeping cabin. We had learned that reservations could only be made two years in advance. So, one Sunday morning at 9:00 in 1986 I called the park office at Abe Martin Lodge. I got a busy signal three or four times. Would we get our reservation or not?

“One more try, PRESTO, I got through. ‘Just a minute, please,’ the person at Abe Martin Lodge said. When she came back on the line, I told her we wanted to reserve a cabin. ‘You just got the last one available.’ She had put the other party on hold. So, two years later, (1988), we arrived at Lon Moon cabin.

“How nice! Perfect weather, but we had a little rain. Well-behaved children who got to use the slide. Well, that’s enough introduction. As you see, we’re back again two years later (1990).”

Our grandnieces in 1990 were four- and one-year-old. After Marty, Jan, and Jim had written their memories of 1988, four-year-old grandniece Jessica had her dad write hers: “I liked the ponies, and I liked to go to Nashville as Marty said in the other memory, and I liked the gift shop at the pony corral, and I liked getting the unicorn that was glass, and I liked the Reptile Kingdom.” Then she added, “We have many more memories, we just can’t remember them.”

Over the years we stayed in various Abe Martin’s Family Cabins on Skunk Ridge. These cabins are named after characters in Kin Hubbard’s “Skunk Ridge Papers.” The cabins we stayed in were Lon Moon, Lide Hanger, Pogue Swallow, Lester Pine, Lyle Kite, Everett Sap, Babe Kite, Toad Bentley, and Lyle Kite.

We wrote or colored in the journal during each stay, including leaves that Jessie and Jenny collected.

Stay tuned for more bits and bobs of memories from these idyllic weeks spent together “at home” in Brown County.

Signs of fall around home at Greencroft

Quotes re memories

“We do not remember days, we remember moments.”

“A good life is a collection of happy memories.”

“Memories are timeless treasures of the heart.”

“Cherished memories, forever cherished.”

“When you laugh, cry and smile together, your heart knows it’s memories in the making.”

Cherish the beautiful moments of your life, maybe even write them down.

-John