Destination: Indiana Dunes NP
Dates: Sept 3-4, 2020
Reason: COVID getaway
Day 1 September 3, 2020
Our original vacation plans had to be scrapped due to the COVID pandemic. Fortunately, Julia and I were able to find a couple of days to get away, and she was very keen on seeing Indiana Dunes. I hadn’t been there in over 30 years and was too small then to remember them anyway. So it was decided and our lodging was booked.
We packed the car and left the house at 8:30am. Rain fell until we were just west of the Indiana border. It was Finn’s first visit to Indiana. I-74 had intermittent construction all the way to Indianapolis, then I-465 and I-65 continued the trend. Finn was a wonderful traveler, thanks to an ingenious iPad rig Julia made. He snoozed a bit and watched his favorite video: dancing fruit.
Numerous windmills covered the fields up near Valparaiso, where we stopped to have our picnic lunch at a Pilot truck stop. After that quick stop we found the Indiana Dunes Visitor Center at 1:40pm. We got Finn’s passport stamp and picked up his Junior Ranger workbook. Then we headed for our first hike.
Mt. Baldy was our destination. My parents have a tale about when they brought us here: they carried my sister and I up the backside of the dune, only to discover a much easier, actual trail on the other side. Julia and I took the prescribed trail, not eager to make the same mistake. The summit was closed due to erosion, but the path to the beach was open. All was good until we crested and had to trek down the steep backside to the beach. However, the view of Lake Michigan was spectacular.
Once we reached the beach we were shocked at how windy it was. Both of us had our hats blown off and we had to chase them down the sand and into the water. The water was a pleasant temperature, but the sand was coarse and rocky, so we kept Finn on my back. Overall our experience on the beach was nice, marred only by the massive cooling tower from a power plant to the east and by the arduous climb back up Mt. Baldy. Our calves and thighs were screaming when we reached the top again.
Before checking into our AirBnB, we made 2 more stops. The first was to look for the Century of Progress homes from the 1933 World’s Fair in Beverly Shores. The houses are privately owned, but sit on National Park land. I plugged in the address for a nearby parking lot, Dunbar Beach. Unfortunately, in typical fashion, I parked us at the Lake View lot. Julia astutely noted that she thought we were in the wrong place, but I didn’t listen. After going the wrong way for a bit, we went the way Julia suggested and promptly found the houses right away.
They looked neat, but since they are privately owned you can’t tour them. We had to make due with driving by. After oohing and ahhing from the car we drove another minute to reach the Dune Ridge trail. The hike was refreshing, moderate, and wound through lots of different environments. We saw dunes, forests, marshes, fern gullies, and sweeping viewpoints. Julia carried Finn the whole time; he was fascinated with everything he saw. Between this trail and Mt. Baldy, we had walked on so much loose sand that our calves and thighs were aching.
By this point we were all hungry and Finn was cranky, so we went to find our lodging. We had booked our night for a stay in a travel trailer situated on someone’s property. It was only a block away from the park so we got there in no time. We settled in; the trailer had two beds, but we only used one. The bathroom was cramped. Our objective in selecting the trailer was to get a taste for what life would be like in one. We certainly got that.
Since we were hungry we wanted to try something local. Our host suggested a barbecue place called Wagner’s, just a few minutes drive. When we arrived we found out that only 21+ could enter, so we ordered our food and waited in the car for it. While we waited, Finn got his first taste of soda (Pepsi) and he instantly fell in love. When we got back to the trailer we ate our pork sandwiches, and Finn began his reign of terror. He refused to settle down for bed, and when he finally did, he still woke several times over the course of the night.
Day 2 September 4th, 2020
Finn had us up starting at 4:30am. Our plan was to get his Junior Ranger badge at the Visitor Center at 9am when they opened, so we had some time to kill. Once it was light out, we packed up the Jeep and let our host know that we were leaving. After a wrong turn or two (which turned a 3 minute drive into a 12 minute one), we found the parking lot for the Bailly Homestead trails.
The Bailly Homestead is a collection of buildings constructed by fur trader Joseph Bailly for his family and business in the 1830’s. We hiked a short trail to reach the clearing of the stead, meeting some unleashed dogs and their owners on the way. Finn loved the dogs. He was also very sleepy on this walk. After touring the grounds we headed back to the car and over to the Visitor Center.
Julia “helped” Finn fill out his Junior Ranger booklet the night before, so when we got to the ranger station he was ready. Ranger Brittney swore him in and he got his official badge from his first National Park! That item checked off, we headed for our next and final Indiana Dunes trail.
Continuing with the theme of this trip, our GPS dumped us into the wrong spot for the Dunes Succession Trail. We ended up waiting about 10 minutes for a train to pass, only to find ourselves in a residential neighborhood. I used a physical map to navigate and got us over to the parking lot for the trail.
This turned out to be our favorite hike. The weather was absolutely perfect, the trail was challenging yet leisurely, and took us through all kinds of environments; up a sandy dune, into a forest, over a marsh, and finally onto a Lake Michigan beach. The sky was so clear we had a delightful view of the Chicago skyline across the water.
After the hike we left the Dunes and headed west to Pullman National Monument. Finn slept the 40 minutes it took to get there and missed both beautiful Gary, Indiana and his first time entering Illinois. True to form, I took a wrong turn and it took us 15 extra minutes to get to Pullman.
Once there we toured the Visitor Center and talked to the ranger staff. Finn got another Junior Ranger badge, then we drove around the site and checked out the architecture of the Hotel Florence, administrative building, and the residences where the Pullman employees lived. We didn’t stay very long, and I really regret not getting any pictures of the site or our family there.
We stopped at a McDonald’s before getting on the highway to head home. Once on, we hit traffic heading out of Chicago. Finn cried himself to sleep and we got loose of cars once we hit I-65 south. Julia took a nap as well. We stopped for gas in Lebanon, just north of Indianapolis, and switched driving. Finn woke up and screamed all the way from the Indiana-Ohio border until we hit I-71. After the customary stop at Skyline, we rolled into our garage at 8:30pm.
Robinsons on the Road 