September 17-19, 2024: Harmonie State Park (Indiana)

On our drive from Colorado to the Richmond, VA area we decided to take a break at Harmonie State Park in Indiana. The park sits on the Wabash River which forms the border between Indiana and Illinois in that vicinity. The park is about 3500 acres in size (more specifically 3465 acres according to one reference). The campground has 200 sites. The forest is mature so there isn't much undergrowth. This leads to campsites that are well shaded under the canopy but not privacy between camp sites. With 200 sites, there are some with decent privacy but we picked a site in the middle of one of the loops. Fortunately, it was during the week and the off season so the nearest occupied site was several removed from ours and privacy wasn't an issue during our short visit. The table for the camp site behind us was right near our back/only entrance door. Hopefully the following pictures  are illustrative. 

We arrived early evening on Tuesday and left near daybreak on Thursday so that allowed for park exploration and biking on Wednesday. In addition to roads and paved bike trails there are mountain bike trails. The wife wasn't up for biking so I didn't think it was worth taking all the bikes out to get to my mountain bike which is the last to unload. So I just picked road biking since my road bike is the first to unload. I took a couple of medium length almost duplicate rides, around 16 miles each. Most of each ride was inside the park but about one-third was outside the park.

I visited the Wabash River boat ramp and picnic area. One of the park/Department of Natural Resource employees told me they were in the middle of a drought (they hadn't received rain in 45 days) so the river was the lowest he had ever seen it. It still seemed picturesque to me, maybe more so with the exposed sand bars as long as you ignored the exposed banks and driftwood. I took some pictures from the boat ramp. The first picture is looking upriver with the clump of trees in the middle being those on Mink Island. The second picture is looking downstream and the third attempts to show the exposed bank due to the low level.

I visited the river picnic area next. The area has vault toilets but surprisingly also has a running water spigot. The area is close to and upriver from the boat ramp area but not right next to it. It also provides a nice view of the river. In this picture, the view is across the river.

There was a placard in the picnic area that described the Wabash River. It was in partial shade so my picture lighting is impacted by that. The placard notes that the lower part of the river represents a transition where some southern tree species such as pecan and bald cypress can be found. The river drains Indiana and Ohio and eventually drains into the Ohio River.

Oil is still present beneath the park. Previous well pumps were used to extract the oil. One of the oll well pumps was painted and preserved as a park attraction. The park mineral rights are owned by a private company. Currently, the oil is extracted by pumping in salt water and forcing the oil to the surface for collection. The preserved well is in the background behind the placard.

At one time, the park had a functioning indoor pool, but the pool building and equipment has since been repurposed ( https://www.in.gov/dnr/state-parks/parks-lakes/harmonie-state-park/harrmonie-state-park-pool-closure/).

After leaving the park Thursday morning we completed our drive to the Richmond area over the next day and a half. We will stay in that area the next two and a half weeks before heading up to New Hampshire and beginning Christmas tree sale preparation at our son's family tree farm.