We spent one night at McCormick’s Creek State Park, Indiana in our campervan with our 3 little kids and loved it! I hate to admit we have lived for almost 9 years within a half hour of this park and never been there as a family, despite all the rave reviews. But now I get it, the park is very cool, and especially great for campervanning!

This was our first campervan trip of 2021 and well due! We haven’t taken the van camping this year because first off, we had a newborn with reflux and sleep issues (not to mention two other little kids who do not do well with multiple nights of poor sleep thanks to the sun going down so late); second, it’s been so incredibly wet this summer in the midwest (read: camping with little kids in a tiny Eurovan in the rain is not exactly fun, and our van has the common leaking-silicone-blocks problem that means we keep it out of the rain as much as possible until we fix it); and third, the van has a few things that need to get fixed before we take it far from home. Also, with three little kids, I am realizing that most things sound fun but actually end up being more hard than fun at this stage, so let’s keep things easy!

However, as a friend recently related, we are currently in the stage of life where we do things “just to stay in the practice of doing things,” so we thought we should fit at least one trip in with the camper van this summer. Enter McCormick’s Creek, Indiana’s first state park and close enough to home that we could actually just go home if anything went wrong!

About McCormick’s Creek State Park

Here are a few things to know about this park!

  • McCormick’s Creek State Park was Indiana’s first state park, founded in 1916! It is 15 miles northwest from Bloomington, and 60 miles southwest of Indianapolis.
  • In 1927, McCormick’s Creek was the first in Indiana (and it appears in the US) to start a nature guide program, which later turned into a naturalist training institute. Now, every state has a Master Naturalist program.
  • There are 10 hiking trails, a 90 foot fire tower, waterfalls, a cave, sinkholes, ravines, huge second-growth forests, a nature center, swimming pools, and a big creek running a mile long down a canyon right through the middle of the park that is perfect for creek walking
  • There are remains of the Old State House quarry, which was a source of the limestone used for the Indiana State Capitol building. See Explorethiscity’s post for a geology review.
  • They have events all summer, check them out on the McCormick’s Creek DNR website.
  • If you visit more than a few times, or plan to go to any other Indiana State Parks as well, get an Indiana State Parks Pass.
  • When it’s super cold in the winter, the waterfall freezes and you can go see it! Check out Explorethiscity’s post about it.

McCormick’s Creek State Park Campground

I really like this place for campervanning with kids! Here is why:

  • The campgrounds are inside the park, and contain multiple trailheads and access to most of the main trails and activities, including a paved trail to a big playground, nature center, and pool. SO, you don’t have to pack up the camper van just to drive to your destination!
  • The campgrounds are in the forest with trees between each campsite, so it feels more private.
  • The park attendants are very friendly, they let both our car and van in with my one Indiana State Park pass and let both vehicles stay in the campsite even though the rules say no more than one car per site, probably because the camper is basically our tent or trailer.
  • There are a variety of trails and activities that are great for little kids, from the nature center, to flatter walks, to creek exploring.

The only thing to know going into camping here is that you will definitely need leveling blocks, since the campgrounds are just a little hilly and every site I saw had a little slope to it.

What To Do at McCormick’s Creek State Park With Little Kids 

Here’s what we did, in the order we did them. If you want it, here is a link to the McCormick’s Creek map.

Trail 5 & Wolf Cave

We arrived in the late morning and the first thing we did was hike Trail 5 to Wolf Cave. It’s a 2 mile hike loop, but only about .8 miles to the cave from the parking lot (and .1 mile from the campground via Trail 8, which intersects Trail 5!). Because of time, we only hiked to the cave and back. The parking lot does fill up, so the earlier the better – or you can access the trail from the campground via a short walk on trail 8. Anyway, the trail is mostly a dirt road with some hills and a few spots of roots, stairs, or rocks. I’d take a jogger stroller on it if I had someone to help me carry it in a few places. The trail goes through tall forests, past sinkholes and creekbeds, to the cave and some arch formations. The cave itself is very cool and worth the walk. You can go inside and even crawl all the way through if you’re extra adventurous and have a flashlight. We just explored the first 10 feet. Just around the corner is a rock arch that used to be part of the cave before it collapsed. We went that far then turned around because it was about lunchtime. Our 5 year old loved the walk and cave, while our 3 year old’s little legs got very tired on the walk back. The only downside was that we forgot bug spray and suffered for it with many mosquito bites – so definitely bring some!

The trail:

A huge sinkhole:

Wolf Cave:

Inside Wolf Cave, map from the Nature Center:

Have a Picnic

Next we had a picnic lunch. A cool thing about this park is how many shelters and picnic spots it has! We spread a picnic blanket in the shade near the Westbrook Shelter by the big field behind the Inn. The weather was perfect!

(There were also picnic tables, but we opted for a blanket in the shade):

Then we had the kids take a car nap while we dropped the van off at our campsite, which opened for check-in at 2pm, and took a little drive to the nearby town for bug spray – if you’re wondering, there’s a CVS in Spencer!

Trail 3 & the Waterfall and Creekwalk

Trail 3 is a .8 mile loop that goes to the waterfall and through the creek. You can start at the Canyon Inn parking lot, or the main road’s waterfall overlook parking area. We started from the Inn, and the first quarter is easy walking to the waterfall and definitely do-able with little kids. The waterfall overlook was fun to see, and there are stairs that go down to the rocks below, which our kids loved playing around on. From there trail 3 heads along the creek and eventually into the creek, crossing over it several times through a deep wide beautiful ravine. It gets very rugged (you are walking on big rocks) and you might have to walk through the water depending on the level at the time, so I’d recommend water shoes. We ended up turning around because my husband and I were not wearing good shoes to cross rocks while wearing a big 8 month old and holding the 3 year old’s hand – plus it was dinnertime and I could tell we were close to melt down mode. However, the boys loved it and we wish we’d been able to do the whole thing!

Canyon Inn’s Bird Porch

We had dinner at the Inn’s restaurant. The food was average but the bird porch was pretty, with huge windows running down the length providing a view of the forest. Apparently they hang birdfeeders out all the windows but none were up (probably because of the mysterious songbird illness), but I bet breakfast would be really neat here with the feeders hung and birds visiting. There is also a little gift shop that looked nice.

Do Camp Things

Campfire – Then we went home for campfire and bed! The campgrounds sells wood until pretty late at night, so my husband got a fire going and the boys roasted marshmallows and told campfire stories. It sounds wonderful, but in reality the wood was wet enough it took a long time and a lot of smoke to finally get burning well, the marshmallows I brought were old and squished together (of course the boys didn’t care), and I spent most of the time in the van nursing the baby and putting her to bed.

Bike – We have learned that bringing bikes for your kids is a campground pro move, so we gave it a go. The kids loved it! In the next morning we had breakfast and took a walk around the campground while the kids biked, then biked Trail 8 to the Nature Center.

Trail 8 & the Nature Center

We walked while the kids biked down Trail 8 to the Nature Center. It was about .7 miles and all paved, a lovely easy trail, but a bit hilly at the beginning with some bumps from roots. Later we saw signs saying no motors, horses, or bikes on the trail so… oops! It goes past a great playground and field area with toilets. Of course our children had to play, then had an emergency poop, a pants wetting, and a needs-to-nurse-right-now, so the walk took longer than it should have but that’s to be expected with little kids. Anyway, just before you reach the pool on Trail 8, there will be a dirt trail going to the right through the trees and you can kind of see the Nature Center building. Take the trail to get there! Or go to the pool and swim, to combine activities :).

The Nature Center was really cool, our kids loved it! I have to admit, I haven’t seen that many great nature centers in the midwest, and this one is my favorite so far. It’s quite large with lots of interactive displays, live animals like turtles, snakes, toads, and salamanders, a nature viewing area where you can sit on benches and watch through the glass (they must put out food at certain times of of the day?) and I’ve heard that they do snake feedings as well. There is a lot of info about the geology and history of McCormick’s Creek, so if you like to know what you are looking at while hiking it would be worth stopping at the Nature Center first before exploring the park. There was also good information about Wolf Cave, a map of it, and a special bench you can crawl through to mimic fitting through the smallest part of the cave. I highly recommend visiting the Nature Center at some point!

Then we walked back to camp, had lunch, promised to come back another time, and drove home for naps!

Runners up

Here are some things we would have done if we’d had more time:

  • Trail 10 – goes along the creekbed, quarry loop, and sounds beautiful from Planned Spontaneity’s blog post; it is accessible from the Wolf Cave parking lot (and not far from the campgrounds) or Trail 2.
  • Historic Peden Farm – the ruins of an 1830s homestead plus hiking trails, often hikes hosted by nature guides
  • Pool – you can walk the .7 miles from the campground to get there, or drive!
  • Park Events – the park hosts lots of activities, such as night hikes, farm hikes, quarry hikes, campfires, turtle feedings, nature feedings, etc.. See McCormick’s Creek State Park Nature Center & Events website for a list of upcoming events!
  • Cataract Falls – if you are in the area and have time, another great waterfall to visit under half an hour away from McCormick’s Creek is Cataract Falls: Cagles Mill Lake (Lieber and Cataract Falls)
  • Fried Chicken – after our trip I became aware (via locals) that there are two excellent fried chicken spots in Spencer: Babbs Supermarket & Hilltop Restaurant

The Campervanning

This was our first trip in the campervan with 3 kids – and yes, sleeping all 5 of us in it! As I said earlier, the theme lately has been to things just to keep in the practice of doing things. There were so many reasons not to go camping – the daylight hours are so long the kids don’t sleep well, the van has an engine smell so we don’t want to go far from home, the van as a water leak so we don’t want to go in the rain, the van has no third row so we don’t all fit in it, the van’s fridge is not working, and everything with kids is hard. BUT, instead of just opting out, we decided to go for it and make things as easy on ourselves as possible – and it turned out great!

This was my low-pressure camping plan:

  • We went somewhere close to home, so if it wasn’t working out I could just take the baby home.
  • We only went for one night, so we didn’t have two days of ruined sleep.
  • We brought the van AND our car, mainly because the campervan doesn’t fit us all anymore (we don’t have the third row). This was AMAZING! We didn’t have to load and unload car seats in the camper, and we could leave camp set up and drive the car.
  • We camped somewhere with that accessed most of the trails in the park, so we didn’t have to pack up camp to get anywhere (although this wasn’t much of a problem since we brought that second car).
  • We planned to eat at the restaurant instead of cook dinner, and we only brought snack food, PBJ for lunch, and cereal and milk for breakfast. (This also avoided the fact that the van fridge doesn’t currently work).
  • We only came when the weather was perfect. I actually booked a campsite for the night before, but the forecast turned rainy, so we waited and found an available site for the following night at the last minute. The temperature was perfect with a high of 80 and low of 63,

The plan worked and our trip was pretty stress-free and definitely fun! I hope you are encouraged to see how you can still go camping and have fun even though things aren’t “perfect!”

This was our campsite! Note the stroller is our go-to high chair. We have tried portable high chairs but weren’t happy with them, so now we just bring the stroller because 98-percentile-baby is too big to carry everywhere so it kills two birds with one stone to bring the stroller for walking and eating. I will say I wish we had brought a pack-n-play for her to hang out in, I thought a blanket would be good enough but she just started crawling and kept getting to the edge and eating rocks.

We did fit all 5 of us in the van at night! My husband and I slept in the bottom bed, the 3 and 5 year old slept in the pop top bed, and the 8 month old slept in the front seat bassinet that I made a few years ago. (To see how I made it, click here: Front Seat Bassinet For A Eurovan Campervan). This time I hung a black garbage bag above the seats and tucked it down to keep it completely dark in the cab. I do wish I’d brought our wireless video baby monitor, because my checking in kept disturbing her, but she eventually slept fine. The evening temperature was 66-63 degrees F, and that was perfect with all 5 of us and the windows open a bit. The boys did kick each other quite a bit up top, so I’ve decided we need to get some sleeping bags for next time, to help keep their feet to themselves!

This trip we got to experience how truly game-changing the awning is. First, when we arrived the sun was beating down pretty well on the van, but as soon as we opened our Fiamma awning, which only takes one person and one minute, you could feel the van start to cool off from its shade. Then the next day when it started to sprinkle, the awning gave us so much extra dry room out of the rain – to take wet clothes off and park the stroller with the sleeping baby, to name a few. I tried to get a picture (below with stroller inside) of how much additional space it gives, but it’s really hard to capture.

So overall it was a success! I hope you find this blog post helpful and get a chance to visit McCormick’s Creek yourself!

Links

Have you been to McCormick’s Creek State Park? What was your favorite trail?