trip #3

Good afternoon.
We've just returned from another trip.
This one took us to Indiana Dunes State Park. And even thought the forecast was for a reasonably nice weekend, it wasn't so much. We averaged about 15 degrees below normal for the weekend. Instead of around 70, it hovered in the mid 50's and was cloudy and windy and that means cold. But we made the best of it as usual. We arrived safely Friday afternoon, and got our site all set up. Upon a tour of the campground, we discovered it very busy with lot's of tenters. Now those people are true campers to come out with night time temps in the 40's. And as with our Dunes tradition, we had Popeye's chicken for dinner. Yummy! Love that spicy chicken! There's a Popeye's about a mile from the park at a truck stop next to the highway.
Saturday morning as we were returning from are coffee walk, I discovered the front passenger tire on our car was flat. Upon inspection, I saw a nail just next to the tread area by the sidewall. Craig said because it's so close to the sidewall, we'll probably not be able to have it repaired. I got out our air compressor and filled the tire to see if it would hold well enough to get into town and find a place to replace it. It appeared to hold the air, so off into town we went. We found a couple of tire places, and they confirmed Craig's thoughts. The tire needed to be replaced. And Craig knew that the tread was getting bad on all the tires so he decided to go with a complete set. And he wanted them from a dealer we also had in Lansing, just in case a warranty issue comes up in the future. Well, nether of the first 2 places we found were also in Lansing, so we kept looking and finally went to a Walmart. They had tires in stock and at a good price. So by time we got that all taken care of it was nearly noon, and since our sunny mild morning was turning cloudy, cold, and windy, we decided to skip our drive into Chicago. So as a back-up plan, we went and had lunch at the waterfront cafe in Michigan City, and then to the big outlet center. There we ended up at the Fossil outlet where Craig got a new wallet, and I a new watch. Then back to the campground for a warm fire and turkey kielbasas on the grill followed by a movie in our warm mo-ho.
Sunday I let Craig sleep in and went for a walk to the beach. Our campground is about a mile from the beach via road, but there's a beach trail that goes from the edge of the campground following a creek to the beach that's only about a half mile long. Well when I reached the beginning of the trail, it was strung with that orange mesh fencing with a sign saying it was closed. We drove down to the beach later to discover that they were reconstructing that end. The creek use to come out of the woods into a large marsh-like area, where it disappeared under the parking lot, only to come back out at the beach side. 2 years ago, the tiles used to carry the water under the parking lot must have failed and the entire corner of the lot collapsed. At the time the just fenced off that section of the lot and dug a temporary ditch for the water. What they are doing now is building a kind of viaduct from the marsh area to the lake with a foot bridge over one section to connect it to the beach trail, and another foot bridge near the lake to connect the one side of the beach with the other. Burying rivers in the first place never seemed like a good idea to me anyway.And with the cloudy cold weather continuing, we decided to try our luck at the Blue Chip Casino. And as usual, Craig won and I lost. Maybe I should just go and watch him. :-) Then we went back to the campground, read the paper, and I did dishes while Craig made a pasta salad for dinner. While the salad was 'resting' we took a walk. Then it was pork steaks on the grill to go with the salad. Then we decided to break down the campsite, as rain was forecast for Monday Morning. The less we have to do in the rain the better.
Monday morning arrived and the radar showed the rain very close, but not on us yet, so I awoke Craig very early for him, :-( and we got the mo-ho hooked up to the car caddy and the car loaded and on our way before the rain hit. We returned home with out and incident, so a good trip.