Magnus Goes Home to Thor, Day 6

Tuesday, October 29

Chicago wakes up,

 

 

 

I got to walk the Magnificent Mile, or at least a part of it. Not all that magnificent--lots of big buildings but not as great as Philadelphia, and lots of shopping but nothing as cool as the open air mall at Honolulu's Waikiki beach.  We took the walk after breakfast to kill some time before we headed out.

 


 

 Some history of the hotel

Inside the hotel

No 13th floor!!!

Outside the hotel (I think)

 

 

Walking around the area, after breakfast:

The plan for the day was to go back to the Thor manufacturing area and spend the night in an inexpensive hotel in Napannee, about 10 minutes south of Wakarusa.  And on the way there, stop at the Indiana Dunes National Park and do some hiking and see some birds.

And that is what we did...but not quite. We saw two mute swans (new bird for me!!!), a mess of mallard ducks, and some Canada Geese. And we did less than a mile of hiking.

 

Sorry to be such a jerk about it, but Indiana Dunes was the lamest National Park I've ever been to.   It appears to be a tiny dis-contiguous set of small parcels of land, mostly along the lake, joined together by local highways and interspersed with tiny townships. Some areas along the lake have parking areas with permits required by the township. This is something I've seen along the ocean, but not in "the middle" of a National Park!

 

We didn't see more than a few gulls and I failed to identify them. I did see a Bald Eagle at the marsh where the ducks were.  And a great blue heron.  The problem was that it was very windy and I had on blue jeans and uncomfortable tennis shoes.  I'd worn the shoes all the previous day and they were making my toes hurt.  So it was very beautiful, but there weren't any birds and I didn't feel much like hiking the little pathways.  We stopped at Old Baldy, a "huge" dune, and walked the trail to the beach there. About 1/4 mile.  They wouldn't let you climb on the dune...why?  Dunno.

 
And the park map was horrid so we had trouble finding anywhere else worth walking to. I guess I should have researched better. Usually you can ask the people in the visitor center and get better instructions than you can find online, but when I asked the guy at the center about the auto tour route he didn't seem to know what I was talking about, and for the hiking directions he just waved his hand at on the map.  He was nice and we talked about various things, but not very informative.

Then we went on to Napannee and checked into our hotel, and by then it was time for supper. We chose to go to Heinnie's Family Dining (and Bar) which was a 25-minute drive up to Elkhart and worth it.  Good salad, great waitress, good grilled fish and wild rice, and a rib-eye steak that was perfectly cooked.  They had slow roasted prime rib, too, but Ed chose the steak instead.

 

We were stuffed and happy and tired, so back to bed it was.  Very nice hotel, too--a local place, not a chain, and it gave us 10% off for being Thor repair customers.