Eagle Creek Park- Indianapolis

Does it get any better than a late summer day spent leisurely at Eagle Creek Park? We don't think so. Finding ourselves with a rare weekday free, we headed to the west side to find some zen at Eagle Creek. We haven't been canoeing in well over a decade so we decided it was time to do it again. We parked at the Marina and signed up to rent a canoe for $10/hour. We headed out and quickly realized what good upper body exercise paddling is. As we tried to get in sync with our paddling, we were thrilled with all of the wildlife that we saw. We've never seen so many herons (we think that is what they are, you'll correct us if we are wrong). They are so gorgeous and we even saw some baby ones. We managed to paddle for almost 2 hours and then found a picnic table to enjoy some much needed sustenance. On our way from the Marina parking lot to the hiking path, a fellow park visitor had to point out a deer right in the parking lot just a few feet away from us. As you can tell from the photos, he was a bit of a ham. We then headed through the woods (getting lost as we always do here) for a long hike. The chorus of locusts and even more deer sightings made for a perfect walk in the woods. It's only $5/car to get into the park and it is so wonderful; we are feeling pretty jealous of the west-siders.