Indiana (and Illinois) have terrible roads. You would think that, at least, the interstates would be good, but they resemble a cheese grater more than a road. Maybe each state has a greater purpose. Maybe, God created Indiana and Illinois to grate mozzarella for a giant pizza, hopefully, when no one is one the road. And, God created New Jersey to make sure there was a worst state in America. Who knows. Maybe there is a grand plan other than incompetence, but, sadly, it is probably just corruption, greed, and incompetence.

The point of this is that, the last time we stayed at Summit Lake State Park, we took a back highway to avoid some of the worst interstate roads. It appears that Indiana caught on and foiled our plan for this year. Notice something wrong?

Yes, that is construction. Worse, they are installing the nemesis of every large vehicle on earth – the round-a-bout. Actually, it seems to be the nemesis of many Americans. (According to the IIHS, traffic circles reduce injury crashes at intersections by about 75%.) We tried various options from this point, and they were all bad. On the way back, we might have found a passable alternate route.

Back at the park, we also found a lot of Canada Geese. The babies are almost grown, and we had to stop multiple times to let a goose train cross the road. Fortunately for us, they have not watched Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds.

We rode bikes later in the evening, and they were still everywhere, except, oddly, the water. It is possible the water here is not 35% Goose Deuce like the lake Findley State Park.

Geese to the left, and Geese to the right.

Uh, someone needs to teach the geese to not drink from the dump station. Yuck!

They were in large groups like a flash mod, so John was hoping they would break into a song and dance. All they did was waddle, honk, and hiss. Clearly, they are not participants of Canada Has Talent.

John also saw a small hawk glide over, but he did not have camera gear. It was light underneath with speckles. We also saw a dark hawk perched on a dead tree. We do not know if they were the same.

It was supposed to rain within about an hour of leaving, so we headed back and just beat the rain.

In Yellowstone National Park, you had Grizzly Bear and American Bison jams. In Summit Lake State Park, you have Canada Goose jams. The bear and bison are more interesting, but the goose is a lot less dangerous.

A nice aspect of Summit Lake State Park is that it has about 6 miles of road, if you include the spurs to the entrance shack, beach, and boat ramps. This twice the distance you find at most other state parks. There are small hills, wild flowers along the road, views of the water at most of the parking lots, and birds abound. (Especially, Canada Geese at this time of year.) The only down side is that the road seems to be asphalt paved over old concrete. There are regular gaps in the rode that are sufficient to give you a jolt on the bike. If you have the normal hard bike seat, the experience of bike riding at Summit Lake State Park is likely similar to being ninja punched in the butt for a half hour.