We woke up in the morning and spent a short time socializing with Ezra before packing up and heading back to the garage to get our car. We hit some traffic leaving Chicago, but before we knew it, we were in Indiana.
It took us a little over an hour to make it to the Best Western Indian Oak in Chesterton, Indiana. It was raining, which we thought would sour our plans to explore the newest national park, Indiana Dunes, but the day ended up going quite well. The hotel let us check in before 11am, which was amazing, so we were able to relax a bit. It was a nice hotel, though for some reason there was no elevator, so we carried our many belongings up the stairs to the second floor. We drove a few minutes to the North Side Diner, where we had an amazing brunch. At this old-fashioned establishment, Abe got a banana milkshake, and we ordered two different types of potatoes (hashbrowns and tater tots) to go with our meals, French toast and a veggie omelet. Arielle’s meal also came with a biscuit. Everything was delicious. It’s nice to find places like this in the middle of the country!
Next, we drove to the national park, though we got lost on the way and ended up in the state park of the same name, which has an entrance fee not covered by the annual national parks pass. We were able to figure out where we were and made it to the national park, where we had been told to drive along one particular street that was right on the water. We passed a number of insanely huge lakefront houses, and found it to be really windy and chilly outside but still quite beautiful. We got out of the car once or twice before driving to another part of the park, where we were able to see the skyline of Chicago in the far distance. We made a couple wrong turns on the way, but eventually found it. It seemed like a bad idea to walk down the boardwalk since it was very wet.
We went food shopping and to CVS on our way back to the hotel, and bought some Indiana muffins for our next hosts. We drove across the street to Craft House, a restaurant that had told us on the phone that what they called the “Incredible Burger” was indeed the Impossible Burger that Arielle loves so much. It turned out that it wasn’t the case (likely the Beyond), but it was still good. Abe got salmon, which was very tasty, and while we were waiting for the food to be made, we walked back to the hotel to get Arielle’s water bottle and get some more steps in. Once the food was ready, we drove to that same spot where we had earlier been able to see the Chicago skyline, and ate our dinner overlooking the incredible sunset. The boardwalk was dry enough for us to walk it now, but we had to be careful not to be splashed every once in a while. We stuck around for a while and enjoyed the sunset fully before driving back to our hotel and heading to bed.
Approximate number of miles covered: 58
