Teens getting out: Red Mill County Park
Story by: Rachael Hennessey, photos by Brian Saavedra
Thank you to Rachael and Brian for being my “guinea pig teen writers”! I’m so glad they enjoyed themselves this summer and were able to find a few of my favorite hidden treasures. They are off to college now and I’ll miss having them, but hopefully they will come back occasionally and write some more!
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This past week we decided to choose Red Mill County Park to explore. You can find this park in LaPorte on South Holmesville Road, and it is absolutely one of the most beautiful ones I have been to so far.
Brian decided to bring along some of our favorite coffee to enjoy before we began our walk. There are plenty of benches placed along the outside of the parking lot. This provided a perfect place to sit and take in everything while you could hear trains passing by in the background. Beautiful? Absolutely.
Nearby the picnic tables, you can find a series of different metal structures that one may use to exercise before or after their walk. While they seemed bizarre to me, Brian saw these structures as a challenge. Each structure had a sign that gave different levels of achievement, such as doing 20 sitÂups meant you were advanced. After doing the advanced level of exercises on a few, let’s just say Brian was definitely done exercising for awhile.
At the end of the exercising obstacle course, there’s a small opening with a picnic table accompanied by an incredible view. The high hill drops down where you can look over a large portion of the park. It was hard to perfectly capture on camera, but we did our best.
Then the trail begins. The trees open up to an area where you would find a bridge that overlooks a miniature river. With how green all of the foliage is currently, it was a gorgeous sight. The sounds alone were enough to capture my attention for awhile.
The biggest thing that made me love this park as much as I do was the sheer size of the lake in the center of it all. The smaller bodies of water give just a glimpse of how great the lake is. Picnic benches lined the sides, and there were tens of dozens of lily pads all over. We also stumbled across what looked and sounded like a small waterfall next to one of the tables. Perfect place to have a picnic next to the sound of running water.
You can walk and check out of the lake from all different angles. With the convenient picnic tables, there are plenty of chances to sit and soak in the view. I would recommend this trail to anyone, as it does not have a lot of walking and the sights are too good to pass up. I’ll be coming back to visit it again soon.
To see more of the places, Rachael and Brian visited this summer, click here.
Jennifer Hoots
Great post. Is this a trail that is bike friendly?
DigTheDunes
Here is a peek at the Red Mill Loop http://www.laportecountyparks.org/Red%20Mill.pdf
Jennifer Hoots
Wow 34 miles!