By Lindsey Erdody | IDS | March 20, 2012

Walking along a snow-dusted gravel path, Jim Eagleman’s crunching feet come to a stop as he spots a wounded American beech.

“‘Tom loves Susan’ — I’m really happy to know that,” Jim says, pointing out a carving on the tree trunk.

He pulls out his pocketknife and asks a volunteer to give him her bare arm, but the woman backs away. Jim has made his point: No one wants to be carved with a knife, not even trees.

“Does the tree just stand there and take it?” he asks. “Well, yeah, it stands there and takes it, but it hurts it.”

Jim explains to the group he’s teaching that even small carvings, including “Tom loves Susan, cause damage to a tree’s health. Then he moves on to the next tree, a shagbark, and discussed the features that make it easy to recognize. He says recognizing trees is just like facial recognition with people.

For Jim, trees are like people. They’re the people he sees every day, the people he studies, the people he works with. But even after 34 years as an interpretive naturalist at Brown County State Park, he doesn’t get bored seeing the same trees every day because they are always changing, just like any other living thing.

It’s his job to be curious like this. He doesn’t have an average day because he sees something new every day. Every day, he is learning more about the land.

“A naturalist is a curious person,” Jim said. “You’re never satisfied with learning 20 trees when there’s 50 more to know. We don’t know all there is to know yet. That’s an exciting thing.”

As recently as 2004, mountain-bike trails were non-existent in Brown County State Park in Nashville, Ind.

Indiana's Brown County State Park is home to some of the best mountain biking trails in the country.

So what transformation took place to being recognized as one of the premier trail systems in the world in just a few short years?

It all started in 2003 when the International Mountain Bicycling Association (IMBA) published its annual report card, rating states based on factors such as trail access, quantity, and quality. Indiana was awarded a disappointing D+.

When I was a student at Indiana University, my friends and I would drive into the country following the winding and twisting roads, looking for antique shops and unique places of interest.

As we traveled along the periphery of the Hoosier National Forest, further and further away from IU, the roads became narrower, rising up and down, curving here and there until the ride had a roller coaster feeling to it.

On one such trip, we came across a small town in Brown County named Story, a ghost town of sorts. Only one elderly woman seemed to live there, running an old-fashioned general store with a hand pump outside where you could get a drink from the cup that hung from its side (I guess the health department had never made it this far back in the woods) and gas was sold from 1930s-style pumps with glass crowns on top.

By: Brandon Andress

In an Indiana winter it might be 50 degrees by day and snowing a foot by night. It is completely unpredictable. But when nature blesses you with a temperature 25 degrees above the seasonal average…you better be outside enjoying it!

I jetted out to Brown County with one of my good friends, local craft brewer Jon Myers. Our plan was nothing more than to get out, breathe deep, and enjoy a brisk hike...

Hiking in the barrenness of winter definitely gives me an overwhelming sense of stillness, contentment, and simplicity but more than anything it produces a longing within me for spring… for rebirth and life… and that from death… something below the surface is waiting to awaken… and when summoned to come forth… life explodes and abounds...

Frommer's BudgetTravel online magazine has tapped Nashville as one of America's Coolest Small Towns...

An online contest through Jan. 31 will determine which town gets bragging rights as America's Coolest...

Votes can be cast once each 24-hour period. To vote visit Budget Travel