A sunny Gulf Coast beach is a welcome sight for Midwesterners during the winter. Most days it’s at least warm enough for a morning stroll along the beach. Listen to the waves lap against the shore, feel the sun warm your face, and your Midwest cabin fever quickly fades. Here are three Gulf Coast state park campgrounds with a beach just steps away and our experience with them.
Mention the Mississippi Gulf Coast, and you may think of sunning on white sand beaches, deep-sea fishing, or dining al fresco. All of those are great Gulf Coast activities…except when the weather doesn’t cooperate. On the occasional rainy or chilly day, plan to visit one of several Mississippi Gulf Coast museums. Here are four museums that history buffs, especially, will enjoy:
Christmas festivals at zoos have become huge holiday attractions. In the Midwest alone, at least eighteen zoos celebrate with holiday lights, carols, animal shows, and even ice skating rinks. Brookfield Zoo, Chicago’s oldest holiday zoo event, is celebrating its 42nd year in 2023. But the very first zoo holiday lights event in the nation was Indianapolis Zoo’s Christmas at the Zoo, which dates back to 1967!
Many other zoos have hopped aboard the holiday festival train over the years. Here are a few highlights of eighteen Midwest zoo holiday lights events for 2023, listed by state:
When I was a kid, we had a family tradition of piling into the station wagon during the Christmas season and driving around town, oohing and aahing at houses decked out in lights. We’ve continued the Christmas lights tradition as adults, only now we don’t drive around neighborhoods looking for homes decorated Griswold style. Instead we find one or two big displays put on by zoos, towns or civic organizations. This year we discovered a winner with the Du Quoin Holiday Lights Fair in southern Illinois. Not only does Du Quoin display an awesome drive-through lights show; they include a big indoor fair, as well.
We’ve been so impressed with Folepi’s Winter Wonderland that we’ve gone to it several times. Folepi’s Winter Wonderland is the signature event of the East Peoria Festival of Lights.
“You’ll shoot your eye out!” Everyone who has seen the movie, A Christmas Story, knows that line. And with the movie constantly in the top movie picks for the holiday season, who hasn’t seen it—at least once? The movie, released in 1983, is based on author Jean Shepherd’s childhood years in his hometown of Hammond, Indiana. Hammond is once again celebrating the movie during the Christmas season at the Indiana Welcome Center. The 2023 event runs from November 11 through December 30.
