trip #13, the details

Good morning.
Trip # 13 details.
We left early Friday afternoon, arriving at Indiana Dunes State Park around 2:30 their time. They are on central time, so we gained an hour.
We should have known with it being Halloween weekend, the park was having all sorts of goings on, including trick or treating on Saturday. We got settled in at our usual site, 83. We fixed beverages, and took a walk around the campground. It was all ready quite busy, and was completely booked for the weekend. The weather was cool with a high only around 50. There were lot's of people decorating their sites. It seems a bit silly to go to all that work for just barely one day. I mean, by Sunday afternoon, there were only about a dozen of us left in the campground. So most people arrive Friday afternoon, have one whole day Saturday, and pack up and leave on Sunday. But I guess it gives people something to do. Us, we like to sit and watch everyone else. :-)
Then it was time for dinner. With this being our last trip, it was a treat of Popeye's Chicken. There is one just down the road from the park in a truck plaza next to the interstate. After we filled our bellies with tasty spicy chicken, it was time for a walk to check out all the decorations. Some people were going all out. Of course, there was also a site decorating contest with the first place winner receiving a $100 dnr gift card and 4 bundles of wood. 2nd and 3rd gets a $25 dnr gift card and 2 bundles of wood.We didn't do anything which is good because the site next to us was going ridiculous with the decorating, and ours would have looked quite puny. :-)

Later that evening we watched a DVD, 10,000 BC. A really good movie!

Saturday, the start of our casino weekend began, we headed west to East Chicago, about a 20 minute drive from the park to the Majestic Casino. In Indiana, Casinos have to be on the water. This one is one of the older casinos and is actually on 2 ships connected together. So you have several floors of gaming. They had a Sabarro's in the hotel lobby where we had lunch. After an hour or so of not much luck, we headed 10 minutes away to another ship, the Ameristar casino. This is just one ship with 4 floors. Quite a bit smaller. As it was very crowded and we weren't doing well there either, we left after an hour. We decide to stop at the Meijer store in Michigan City just north of the park to pick up dinner extras, and of course, candy for the trick or treaters.

Back at the campground, I started a fire while Craig prepped dinner, which was to be baked potatoes, pork steaks and marinated Zucchini. I then saw early trick or treaters and set up a table near the front of the mo-ho. I set out 3 little plastic pumpkins and a torch to make it look a little bit festive. We sat around the campfire and watched all the trick or treaters in all their cute costumes thinking that after today, they'll all go home on Sunday, and get to do it all again. They'll be on a sugar high for a month!

At one point, we were both inside working on dinner, when I heard a little girl say, "there's no one here!" I look out the window as she and her friends grabbed handfuls of candy. That's what happens when you have an honor system, there's going to be some that will abuse it. So I went back out to sit at the fire and left Craig alone to finish with dinner. Most kids would come by and take just one piece, some would take 2, but most, one.

Another little girl came by with her parents, took a piece of candy, and as they were leaving, she said, "they aren't going to win, they have just 3 little pumpkins!" Kids are brutally honest aren't they?

We were in a bad spot for trick or treating, as we were in a corner spot between the 2 campgrounds. So the kids would come by us twice. going from their campground to the other, and then back. There were so many, I'm sure we were 'double dipped' :-)

But we had enough candy for all.
Later, after finding our spartans were killed by Iowa for their first and humiliating lost, we search through the channels and found one called My TV. It shows old sitcoms and was a fun watch for the evening.

Sunday, With our morning coffee walk, we saw people leaving, and others taking down their elaborate Halloween displays. We stopped by the office to see who the winners of the decorating contest were, and not to our surprise, site 84 won. That's the one next to us. Back next to our site, they had 5 people helping to take down their decorations. I figured they'd be their most of the day with all the stuff they had. I said our congratulations as we left for another day of gaming. This day took us north, 20 or so mile across the border to the Four Winds casino. The place was packed! Apparently some contest going on all day. We were there less than and hour and left. Since it was lunch time, we drove into nearby New Buffalo, and found a nice restaurant called the Stray Dog. All the workers had t-shirts with the a mangy dog on the front and the name of the restaurant, and on the back it said, SIT, STAY. cute. I had a very tasty hot dog. It was stuffed with cheese, wrapped with bacon and deep fried. Craig had a cheese casadia.

The wall in the bathroom, covered with dog pics.

Than a short drive back to Michigan City, and the Blue Chip Casino. This is a nice small cozy casino. It also was very busy and we were there only about an hour. We don't like going to casino's and not being able to play the games we like. The good news about that, is we don't leave as much money as we could have. :-)

Back at the campground, our winning neighbors were gone. I was impressed how quickly they packed. We fixed beverages and walked around the campground. There were more people there than I thought. We fixed a campfire, and sat and talked and watched as more stragglers slowly left.

Dinner was chicken kielbasa's and left over candy for dessert. :-) Monday morning, as soon as the sun rose, (about 8am Lansing time) we packed up, dumped, and left.

Arriving back in Lansing, and being the last trip of the season, we filled the propane tank, filled the gas tank and added Sta-bil, and did a power flush of the holding tanks. And next week, we'll take it in for an oil change, and gen maintenance.

We went, and arrived back safe, no incidences. It was a great trip to end a very nice season.

Now it's time to winterize, empty out everything, and park him for the long winter.

But it's not all sad. After getting through the busy holiday season, we'll be able to spend the winter thinking about, and planning, the next seasons trips. Some fun regular spots, and some new, interesting spots. Any suggestions?