Camping by the Ohio River

In between the Detroit and Cincinnati games, we had a day to kill.  So we hopped in the car and started heading south toward Cincinnati.  We figured we would drive until we saw something worthwhile and then pull over.  Unfortunately, there weren’t any big attractions in between the two big cities, other than the local zoos.

So we end up deciding to take the day easy and pulled into a campsite off the road.  We had camped at many sites up to this point, but this campsite, called Camp Shore, was something special.  Now, I find it hard to encompass all of the unique characteristics of the site, but I feel that one word adequately describes it: Spectre.  Now for those of you who have seen the movie Big Fish, you know what I am talking about.  For those of you who haven’t, you should watch it.  In this Tim Burton flick, the main character Edward Bloom stumbles into this little town, which is covered in grass and isolated from the world.  The people of the town all know each other and walk around the entire grass field that they live on barefoot.  At night, the town lights itself up and everyone celebrates in the center.  Now the town does have its oddities and the people are unique, but there is a calming, soothing nature within the town.

We arrive at this campsite in Indiana and pick out our site.  The owners of the site are very friendly.  As we pay our dues, we talk about our trip, and they tell us about other visitors that they have had.  After we set up camp, we begin to play catch on our grassy plot placed in the middle of a grassy field.  The campgrounds are surrounded on one side by a cornfield, and runs right up to the Ohio River on the other.  There is a little path the runs around the campgrounds and people drive by in their golf carts waving and talking to us about how jealous they are of our road trip.  We relax for the afternoon.

Once the sun begins to set, we head down to the bank of the Ohio River, where there is some dried out wood, which we end up using for a fire.  The view of the sun setting on the river was awesome.  As the water reflected the trees and mirrored the sunset, we took a break from collecting wood to watch nightfall take over.

When we dropped off the wood back at the site, we jumped in the car and headed out to an Indian Casino located near the freeway.  The casino, named the Hollywood Casino, was decked out with photos of old movie stars and was decorated with 1950’s LA décor.  While the casino had some nice aesthetic features, it proved to be pretty tough, as none of us walked away winners.  We could claim one victory, as Brad walked away even.  After two hours in the casino, we decided to call it a day and we headed back to the campsite.

In the morning, we began to pack up.  A man, who we hadn’t seen yet, drove by and asked, “leaving so soon?”  Unfortunately, yes, we were leaving.  But we were on our way to Cincinnati for some more adventures.