This had been a very hectic summer for us. We were busy at the office and had made four trips over the summer in search of or bringing home our new converted coach. Although our original plans had been to travel more with the kids this summer, we suddenly found ourselves at the middle of August with only one weekend left before Panjee and Tricia returned to school. Hence, we decided to spend a long weekend at Indiana Beach from Friday evening, August 17 through Monday morning, August 20.

Indiana Beach is located on Lake Shafer, a little north and west of Indianapolis, Indiana and about five hours from our place. In addition to an old fashioned boarkwalk amusement park, it offers a small sand beach, a boat that goes out on Lake Shafer, and a large campground.

This particular outing accomplished two different things. One was to get everyone out for a good time on the last weekend before school. However, this trip also served as an initiation into campground life for both the family and our new coach. The previous owner had apparently not used the coach much in campgrounds and I needed to make sure that everything was working and set up propertly. It also was an initiation for the family since Nancy, Menchu, Panjee and Tricia had never been in a campground previously.

Larry

Little girl, big bus. I let Menchu take the wheel of our 40-foot motorcoach on part of Interstate 39 and Interstate 80. I think she was a little hesitant at first but soon got the hang of it. All of my older kids drove my older buses. The big bus is actually easy to drive on a flat interstate highway because it is very stable and fairly easy to drive. You really should have an experienced driver behind the wheel on major hills, city traffic, or tight corners.
Panjee, Menchu and Tricia pose with the coach at the Indiana Beach campground. While we were there we were hooked up to water, sewer and electric, although there are several restrooms and showers located throughout the campground. They also have a campground store with camping supplies and food. Nancy and Menchu did a really good job of providing real food when we are in the bus. We never did see another real bus in the campground although there were a few Class A motorhomes and one Bluebird Wanderlodge.
Panjee and Menchu were the brave people who went on rides that Tricia and I bypassed. Here, they are on a ride that crosses the Indiana Beach amusement park from one end to the other. This photo was taken with a telephoto lens and they were actually quite a distance over the ground at this point.
This photo shows Tricia on one of the Kiddie Park rides. She did join me on some of the rides for bigger people. All of us went on a Pirate ride several times that let us shoot at objects along the way. We also went on the antique auto ride where Tricia was able to drive the car by herself including pushing the gas pedal. Once, I even got Tricia on the Tilt-a-Whirl. I think she was scared at first but she was smiling when we got off the ride.
While Tricia was afraid to go on some of the rides for big people, she did ask to try the bungee jumping. Here, she gets pretty high off of the ground. I think it helped that we all stood around encouraging her.
Saturday was a nice day for the beach. On Sunday, we spent the day at the Indiana Beach Amusement Park but ran into some rain. Hence, everyone decided to come inside and try their hand at various games that gave tickets depending on your score. Tricia liked the popular Ski Ball game, and actually got quite good at it. Panjee is already an expert and sharpie at some of these games and continued to win a lot of tickets. When we finally decided to quit, the girls had more than 2,000 tickets and came away with some nice prizes. Here is Panjee and Menchu with our pile of tickets while they are being counted.