Indiana Dunes State Park

Indiana Dunes Sunset (Chicago in background)

We’re camped at Indiana Dunes State Park, a great campground. Mary is struggling with her RA today and it poured rain in mid-afternoon, forcing us to have a fairly quiet day. There is a beautiful beach on Lake Michigan here and from the beach you can see the industrial section of Gary, Indiana. In the morning I took a hike along the dunes with a ranger. He explained the natural lifecycle of the dunes. What I found most interesting is how the dunes as they age and move, eventually cover the trees with sand and then about a thousand years later, those trees start to reappear as the dune moves. The end of this hike was at Beach House Blowout. A blowout or parabolic dune is carved out of a dune if the vegetation dies and the wind starts sweeping the dune in a circular fashion instead of straight across (which forms parallel dunes). Here the sand was well exposed, rather than being solidly covered with grasses and later trees. From the top, I could see two other major dunes each just shy of 200 feet above the lake level – covered with trees. The sand here comes from the northern part of Lake Michigan and is deposited in a layer now 200 feet deep into the water. A relatively quiet day – tomorrow we start heading west. We plan to stop at Starved Rock State Park in Illinois for a short hike and Amana Colonies for a German meal.

If you'd like to see more pictures, go to youtube for the 5 minute narrated video.