Indiana Dunes State Park

Site #9

Chicago, Sunday morning traffic jam

Kathy at Dunes State Park

Bruce with rig at Dunes State Park

Thought we would have a short drive today - well the drive was short - 219 miles but it took us 8 hours to do it! Got into a terrible traffic jam in Chicago, 4 lanes of traffic going no where!! Didn't know what was going on or how far the traffic was jammed.  Got out the laptop (we don't have smart phones yet) and had enough battery to see that the problem wasn't far ahead so decided to stick with our route. Wrong plan!! When we finally got to the south side of Chicago found the problem - a semi had overturned and blocked 3 of the 4 lanes! NO traffic controls to help either! Everyone was just on their own to mash 4 lanes down to 1 lane. Surprised that Chicago was so lacking in speeding up the cleanup and also at re-routing traffic!! Oh well, no schedule, just a loss of time and money on gas just idling for 6 hours. We'd planned on going to a state park just north of Lafayette but due to the jam changed our stop to Indiana Dunes State Park, near Chesterton, Indiana on Lake Michigan. Indiana Dunes State Park
The RV park was pretty much the usual state park - with gravel sites, lots of trees and plenty of room between sites. They charge a $10 park entry fee then when you get to the campground they charge another $17.34 to camp. Would have been nice to have been told that the sites were electric only so we'd known to fill our water reserve. We made due and the bathhouse was clean enough, showers could have used some cleaning though. Monday morning we were going to walk over to the Dunes but the path was closed and saw a cement truck so figured we better not to try to sneak by. Decided to go ahead and hook up, drive over to the beach then head on south. The beach area was beautiful!! Lots of soft, white sand and the water was surprisingly pretty too! If the path had been open so that we could have seen the beach before we hooked up we may have stayed a few days. Oh well, on with our adventure!

Walk along Lake Michigan

We took a 2 mile walk along the shore of Lake Michigan today. They have put in a great walk/bike path with some beautiful flower beds planted along the walkway. Other than that, we just chilled at Stop and Dock for the day.

Bike path along Lake Michigan

Day Trip to Manitowoc, Wisconsin

A short drive to Manitowoc, a town of medium size with surprisingly large buildings. Will have to investigate the history of Manitowoc. Has the appearance of a city that was up and coming a long time ago and maybe lost it's main financial supplier, like some the the towns in Oklahoma that were oil towns back in the day. Again, we found that the homes and yards were very pretty. Flowers everywhere! Went to eat at Charcoal Grill but we both thought the burgers weren't worth the charge but better than McDonalds :-) Drove to check out the ferry that crosses to Michigan twice a day April-Oct. HUGE ship but round trip passenger fare is $120 each so we'll just stay on this side of the lake. Looking out over the lake is awesome - so large that it seems like you are looking at over the ocean, without the smell of salt in the air. On to Wal-Mart to get groceries and back to the home on wheels.