Wednesday, February 22, 2017

Finding Inspiration in Nature


With the beautiful weather we are having these days, it’s a good time to take your writing muse outdoors. Even a dreary February day can provide sights like the one above, which resembles a child’s drawing but was actually created by Mother Nature.* The obvious way to use nature for inspiration is to write about it, but you can also take pen and paper or a laptop with you and turn the outdoors into your office.**

The Indiana Dunes top the list of Northwest Indiana nature preserves and hiking trails that can be used for inspiration. The National Lakeshore wanders along Lake Michigan in Lake, Porter, and LaPorte Counties. The Dunes even have a state park that interrupts the national one. The Indiana Dunes State Park is located at 1600 North 25 East at Chesterton, Indiana.

Heading from west to east, here are a few other places in Northwest Indiana that can give you inspiration.

·       Hammond Lakefront Park and Bird Sanctuary, 701 Casino Center Drive in Hammond. Although the park is small, the short trail from the Hammond Marina has several great spots to sit and write.

·      Gibson Woods Nature Preserve, 6201 Parrish Avenue, Hammond.

·       Lemon Lake County Park, 6322 West 133rd Avenue, Crown Point.

·       Grand Kankakee Marsh, 21690 Range Line Road, Hebron.

·       Taltree Arboretum, 450 West 100 North, Valparaiso.

·      Coffee Creek Watershed Preserve, northeast corner of I-80/90 and IN-49, Chesterton.

·       Creek Ridge County Park, 7943 W. 400 North, Michigan City.

·       Luhr County Park & Nature Center, 3178 S. 150 West, LaPorte.

So enjoy the weather, but don’t let it keep you from writing. Use it for inspiration, instead.

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*   The photo at the top of this post is © 2017 by Kathryn Page Camp. It was taken from the bike path that runs along the old Monon tracks (the proposed site of the new South Shore extension) in Munster.

** Thanks to Gordon Stamper, Jr. for the idea behind this post.

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