- Trip start, Duluth stopover, and the International Wolf Center
- Duluth Round 2
- North Shore of Minnesota
- Isle Royale National Park
- Bayfield, Apostle Islands, and Hayward, WI
- Waterfalls, the Porkies and Bond Falls
- Pictured Rocks and the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum
- Mackinac Island
- Dunes, friends, and the end of the trip
After Mackinac, it was time to start the last leg of our trip — heading south along Lake Michigan to visit 2 national lakeshores and parks and visit with some friends. The terrain took a decided turn from the rocky shorelines we had experienced on the trip up to that point, to a more sandy beach environment with lots of dunes along the way. Rather than the faster interstate route, we chose to take scenic Rt. 31. This took us through a number of scenic little towns like Petoskey and Charlevoix that we wished we had more time to see. And that would become the theme of this part of the trip — we need more time! We had arranged to arrive at our friends’ home by late afternoon and misjudged the time it would take us to get there. We did make a brief stop in Charlevoix to see the Mushroom House. This is actually a neighborhood of 28 truly unique houses that were designed and built by Charlevoix native and legend Earl Young. Each of the houses is constructed from the stones and boulders that were brought down from the shores of Northern Michigan. Our favorite of these was the Thatch House with a flowing roof made of the finest natural thatch that was hand-reaped in Europe and shipped to the US. It looks like a mushroom, but I think about it as a Hobbit house!
Because of the time we spent there (my traveling companions nearly left without me!), it reduced the time that we had to spend at Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore to just a drive through. Making it worse, a front came through, reducing the visibility to look out from 450 foot tops of dunes to Lake Michigan below. Of course, the sand of the dunes is not that high; rather the sand is perched on top of large glacier moraines, that are made up of the material (generally soil and rock) left behind by moving glaciers that form into big piles. Anyway, the national lakeshore is long and narrow, yet has a large number of hardwood and conifer forests, lakes, streams, wetlands, and bogs to be explored. Hopefully we will get back and do this beautiful area justice sometime in the future.
We then went down to visit our friends at their beautiful timber frame home right on Lake Michigan. The house (along with houses of other family members) was built a large tract of land that was purchased by our friend’s father back at a time when the local farmer landowners thought it was pretty amusing that someone would want to build a house on the lake! Anyway, we spent a few days there catching up, taking long walks on the beach, and swimming/body surfing in Lake Michigan. Body surfing in Michigan?! Yeah, it was quite the experience. We also enjoyed watching the storms roll in off the lake. Our friend, John, was a master of predicting when they would arrive — and, hence, when we would need to get the chair cushions to safety! Our stay was a wonderful respite from the long daily drives that marked parts of our trip and we are very grateful for the opportunity to rest and relax. But the trip had one more stop!
We continued south and entered Indiana (our 4th state) to visit Indiana Dunes National and State Parks. These turned out to be interesting parks, with a little something for everyone. It is a surprisingly diverse park with forests, marshes, bogs, and savannas in addition to the dunes. And within that ecosystem there are over 1100 types of flowering plants, 350 species of bird, and a whole host of small- to mid-sized mammals. And all of this is less than 2 hours from downtown Chicago! We started out in the State Park to do the 3 Dune Challenge! While the trail is only 1.5 miles long, you are going up and down 3 dunes (known as the Tremonts), the highest of which is 192 feet, with slopes as high as 40 degrees — oh, in sand up to your ankles! Anyway, we did it and yes, got the t-shirt (and a sticker!).
We also visited Mount Baldy, a 4000 year old, 120-foot tall sand dune at the eastern end of the park. The challenge is that will all the human intervention over the last 175 years, the dune has been moving inland at a pretty alarming rate, burying trees as it goes. The Park Service is in the middle of a restoration project to try to slow down its advance.
Our final beach hiking stop was at West Beach on the Dune Succession Trail. As the name suggests, this trail was a great place to see ecological dune succession at work, including a number of different-sized dunes and interdunal ponds as you walk along the boardwalk trail.
But in addition to the dunes, there is a lot of history to be seen here. We visited the Bailly Homestead, some of the regions’s first Euro-American settlers. Bailey was an entrepreneur, establish a successful fur trade and helping to negotiate a number of treaties between the American Indian Nations and the US after the War of 1812. One his last projects was to build this large home, but what is here is a 1903 restoration of the house he built in 1833. We also visited the Gust Lindstrom Farm, a 1910 restoration of the one built by this Swedish immigrant farmer back in 1855. Today, this operates as a demonstration farm by a local school.
Finally, just when you think you have seen everything in a national park, how about a small neighborhood of “Homes of the Future” from 1933-34?! Developer Robert Bartlett had purchased these homes from the Century of Progress International Exposition at the 1933-34 World’s Fair in Chicago and floated them by barge as a marketing stunt for the Beverly Shores neighborhood he was trying to develop there. The houses are now part of the Indiana Dunes National Park and all (except the crown jewel “House of Tomorrow”) have been restored and are leased for occupancy. If you want to know more about these amazing houses, here is a great article on the (https://savingplaces.org/stories/edge-of-tomorrow-the-unexpected-path-of-five-houses-of-the-future-from-the-1933-worlds-fair#.YTp8tC1h1B0)
So that wraps up this trip; 28 days; 4 states; lots of lakes and waterfalls, a whole lot of history, and a ton of fun! And, thankfully, very few black flies and mosquitoes! It’s also the longest dedicated trip that we have taken with our friends and traveling companions, Alma and Ken. And we’re still friends! Thanks for tagging along with us. Until next time!
This entry was posted in Indiana, National Park/Monument, Travel, United States
I am a traveler and sometimes clay sculptor, following a long career working in consulting. My work allowed me to travel the world extensively and I was hooked. Today, I travel with my wife/best friend to explore new places, meet new people, and learn new things.
