Indiana Dunes, Indiana - April 16th to 18th, 2022
After spending about a week or so in Ohio visiting family, we hit the road again. Our next stop was Indiana Dunes, the first national park of Season Four. Indiana Dunes is actually a state park surrounded by a national park. Indiana Dunes is another national park that is easily accessible from a large city, just like Cuyahoga Valley National Park (Cuyahoga Valley National Park, Ohio - August 12th to 15th, 2021) we visited in Season Three. The South Shore Train, which runs between South Bend, Indiana and Chicago, Illinois, has four stations inside the Indiana Dunes National Park. We like the idea of having national parks accessible to more people.
While we were in Ohio, we hit our usual favorite spots like Skyline Chili, Donato’s Pizza, Carillon Brewery, and Whit’s Frozen Custard. In Dayton, we found a nice bakery, Ashley’s Pastry Shop. Although it was new to us, it’s been in business since 1982. We will definitely be back!
One of the mornings we were in Dayton, we spent some time at the National Museum of the Air Force. For not being museum people, we sure have been visiting a lot of museums so far this season. However, the Air Force Museum is one of the finest air and space museums in the country, and it is free! That means you can spend as much time or as little time in it as you want without feeling guilty about not getting your money’s worth. The museum is very large. We spent a couple of hours just walking around building 4 and didn’t even go into the other three buildings. We needed to stretch our legs after sitting still for two days straight.
Saturday, we hit the backroads to reach Indiana Dunes State Park, where our campground reservation was. Along the way, we stopped in Fort Wayne, Indiana to have lunch at Fort Wayne’s Famous Coney Island Wiener Stand. They claim it is the oldest coney stand in America, opening in 1913 and moving to its current location in 1914. We each had two coney dogs, with chili, mustard, and onions on a steamed bun, along with a slice of peach pie. It was tasty, but we’re not sure we would go out of our way for it. Keith prefers a good Chicago dog.
When we arrived at the campground, we walked the half mile over to the beach. The trail took us over Mt. Tom, a sand dune with an elevation of 192 feet. Being from Colorado, it sounded funny to us to call a sand dune a mountain, especially when it is less than 200 feet tall. The sand dunes and beach are pretty, but a power plant along the shore in each direction detracted from the scene. We could see a hazy outline of the Chicago skyline in the distance.
Being a weekend, the campground was pretty full. We were surprised at how many people were tent camping, especially given how cold it was. Temperatures were lucky to be in the low 40’s. Each site does have electrical hookups and we saw extension cords running to some of the tents. Perhaps they had electrical blankets to help keep them warm. Ann’s tail bone was bothering her more than usual (see Shades State Park, Indiana post for how she injured it). She had no appetite, so she skipped dinner, drank an Immune Boost tea, and turned in early for the night.
When Ann woke up Sunday morning, she was feeling better. After breakfast, we headed over to the Indiana Dunes National Park Visitor Center to determine what hike to go on that day. After an informational conversation with the ranger, we decided to hike the Cowles Bog Trail.
We tried parking at the Cowles Bog Trailhead on Mineral Springs Road. However, the ranger there said we should park at the Greenbelt Trailhead back up the road because of the size of our vehicle. Starting at the Greenbelt Trailhead instead of the Cowles Bog Trailhead changed the hike for just about the first mile. Instead of starting out in the woods, we started out alongside a couple of ponds. The way we went was probably prettier, except for the view of the electrical power station, power plant, and steel mill as a backdrop. We did see quite a variety of birds along the trail along with a few turtles sunning themselves on some logs.
The second mile of the hike took us through an oak forest, up and over some sand dunes before reaching the shore of Lake Michigan. It was a sunny but cold day. The sound of the waves breaking on the shore was inviting. Gulls were soaring above our heads. It would have been a perfect place to sit down on the sand and have a snack, if it was not for the cold, stiff breeze coming off the lake that produced a wind chill below freezing.
After strolling down the beach for about a quarter of a mile, we headed up the steep dune and back into the woods to warm up. We struck up a nice conversation with another couple from Indiana as we walked along the trail. Back in the marshy area, we passed a couple of beaver huts and spotted a sand hill crane. We saw evidence of beaver on some of the tree trunks earlier in our hike.
We completed the 4.7 miles with 243 feet of elevation gain in two hours and 38 minutes. This was hike 7 of our 52 Hike Challenge for 2022 and hike 25 of our National Park Series.
After lunch, we drove over to Mount Baldy near the eastern end of the national park. The park is not a single, contiguous piece of land. The largest section surrounds the Indian Dunes State Park along the lakeshore, but there are a few other patches as well, with a couple of them further inland.
Mount Baldy was where the ranger at the visitor center said he likes to walk his dog along the beach. It is a short walk from the parking lot to the beach, around the dune of Mount Baldy. Visitors are no longer allowed to hike to the summit of Mount Baldy because the ground is unstable. Mount Baldy is moving inland at a rate of five feet per year, swallowing up the trees in its path. The steep dune along the beach is the most impressive in the park. Due to the cold wind, we did not venture far along the beach before heading back to our Red Tail Lodge for a hot drink.
On the drive back to the campground, we took Beverly Drive alongside the Great Marsh, then headed over to Lake Front Drive to see the 1933 Century of Progress Homes. The five homes were built for the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair and moved to their current location in 1935. The houses are leased to private individuals who live there. One of the houses we saw was currently undergoing some major restoration. The national park website says that the Indiana Landmarks organization conducts annual tours of the homes the last weekend in September. However, we could not find the tours on the Indiana Landmarks website. Hopefully the tours are just on hold due to COVID and will resume again in the near future.
Monday, we woke up to patches of snow on the ground. It was a cold and rainy day, so we spent most of the day inside the van. The campground pretty much cleared out, only a handful of campers remained. In the afternoon, we drove over to the national park visitor’s center to watch the park movie. We didn’t feel like exploring more of the park in the bad weather, but at least we could learn more about it. The park is host to a widely diverse set of plants and animals. It looks like a nice place to come back to later in the spring, when many plants are in bloom and temperatures are a little warmer.
It was probably not the best time of year to visit Indian Dunes, but we still had a great time, despite the cold. We hope the people in the Chicago area appreciate what they have so close to home. We know we appreciate it and plan to return, hopefully during better weather.
Check out our related video: Indiana Dunes, Indiana
(Ann)