Not sure how I managed to fit as much into this day as I did, but it turned out to be quite a good one! I hadn’t yet seen any of the Great Lakes, so my first stop was the Indiana Sand Dunes, which runs right along the southern edge of Lake Michigan. The park itself is really neat, and has lots of different things to do, a real recreation hub for the area it seems like. For myself, I mostly stuck to the west beach area, after asking one of the rangers for advice. Really helpful folks! It turned out to be a good call, I took a really cool looping trail down to the beach.
Worked up quite a sweat by the time I made it to the beach, and so was quite happy I’d worn my swim trunks out. The water was a bit chilly, but nowhere near as bad as I had feared. The lack of salt in the water kept tripping me up, my brain had a hard time accepting that this wasn’t the ocean! It definitely felt different though, and not just due to its non-saline nature, something about the waves and then horizon felt different, but it’s hard to put my finger on exactly what. Still pretty incredible though, and swimming always tends to rejuvenate me.
There’s a very nice shower and changing facility with a little cafe right by the water, so after drying off and grabbing a snack, I hit the road! Well, for about twenty minutes that is. A ways back (cough, a thousand or so miles, cough), I’d noticed the car had hit its due for an oil change, and after looking at how many miles were left between me and home, I decided it was probably unwise to let it go that far without a change. It’s been very good to me on this trip, least I can be is try to take care of it. Got lucky with a little place in Gary (wonderful name for a town), where they were able to fit me in. Had a nice talk with a long haul trucker named Desmond while I waited, very cool guy, we swapped recent driving stories.
With the car and myself properly refreshed, I hit the road with no real plan other than westward. Made it to Des Moines before I decided to call it quits for the night. For the last few hours, I was driving straight into one of the more spectacular sunsets I’ve seen on this trip. Right at the peak of its color, I came over a hill to a field of wind turbines. The sight of them spinning, black against the red sky, was hauntingly beautiful, and I’ve thought of that image fairly frequently since. I took a picture, but as expected, it really didn’t capture the full effect. An unexpected sight, but I’m fairly sure it’s one that will stick with me. Definitely left an impression.
Fell asleep pretty quickly that night, swimming and driving will take a lot out of you! Had another long day of driving ahead of me as well, thought about combining them into one post, but I think I’ve mostly settled on a day by day approach to this, until then!
Where’s George? 