July 19th: Dunes, Dunes and more Dunes

The goal for the day was to get to Warren Dunes State Park on the Lake Michigan shoreline in southwest Michigan. It's only a couple of miles away from Union Pier, MI which is where my skipper for the Chicago Mackinac Race lives. I would be hitching a ride in to Chicago with him on Friday afternoon prior to the race. But first we had to get there and getting there required another transit of Chicago with the RV. Surprisingly, once again we made it through Chicago on I-94 without any real drama. Midday and the traffic was flowing pretty well without any significant slowdowns. Once clear of the City we stopped at Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore for a looksee. There is no camping in this national park but it does have a nice stretch of beach along with some interesting dunes. Unlike the dunes we are used to such as at Sleeping Bear Dunes, many of these at Indiana Dunes were completely covered with vegetation. However there were some notable exceptions, especially Mount Baldy. Once through the Dunes, we stopped at at my skipper's resort which is a traditional type family lakefront resort with a whole series of cottages. Gint showed us around and filled in some history for us including the fact that it was at this resort that Dwight D Eisenhower was lobbied by the Republican Party to run for President in 1952. Pretty cool.