July 7, 2015–Day 2 Indiana Dunes

  • Jul 09, 2015
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Cody woke up early and as usual full of energy and talkative. We played Duolingo together for a bit. He presses the buttons as I talk him through it. Some of the phrases they have you translate make me laugh. At six in the morning with very little sleep in a tent with my newly turned six year old I am translating, “What do you think of humanity?”

Freight train horns every seven minutes, intense rain, voracious mosquitoes, hot sticky air, congested wee ones who inherited your allergies to everything green, and little limbs flailing about make for a very limited first night’s sleep.  Knowing this is part of camping I was prepared to read. Thankfully I had my light reading book.  Except that within a few pages my light reading book turned dark, oh so very dark.  I am not sure who recommended The Silence of the Trees, but I am hooked now despite my happy light book turning twisted. It helps me remember that even though we could be vacationing on the beach instead of being guests at the mosquito diner, at least I am not living in war-torn Russia.

Reading for several hours when I should have been sleeping did make Cody’s energetic chatter at 6:30 a little more difficult to comprehend, but I love listening to him talk first thing in the morning. He talks more in the first hour of the day then he does throughout the rest of the day. He counted the Daddy Long Legged Spiders in between the tent and the fly. He noted that they were equal-distanced around the entirety of the tent.  Cody was sure they were ready to stage an attack. While I agreed, I had to try to quiet him down while Scott and Brooke still slept.  It reminded me of the days in Alaska when Cody would be up at 5am bright-eyed and ready to play.  He and I would stroll around random towns and campgrounds or play in the van.  He understood, “use your inside voice,” just as much at ten months as he does now!  Not long after my suggestion to be quieter he suggested a pillow fight. Cody and I brainstormed that we would bring his Legos into the tent at night so he would have something to do in the morning while everyone else came to the same cheery disposition he had.

Scott surprised me by suggesting McDonald’s for breakfast.  He cooks in all kinds of weather.  The kids were excited to eat out.  They were even more delighted when the lady behind the counter heard how much they love minions.  She gave them both a noisy minion we are sure to enjoy for hundreds of miles!  “Bancakes!”  Although Scott is convinced they say, “BROOKIE!”

We stopped at the Indiana Dunes Visitors Center. Brooke found an exhibit on animals and their smells. She was all too excited to have me smell the muskrat smell (it was mighty potent). Cody worked on rubbings of plants and animals found in the Dunes.  We watched the two movies they offered and completed the Junior Ranger books.

Next, we embarked on the 3 Dune Challenge. We hiked 1.5 miles up Mt. Tom (192 feet tall and a 43 degree angled slope), Mt. Holden (184 feet and 38 degrees), and finally Mt. Jackson (176 feet and a 31 degree angle).

Cody was able to wear his new Camelback for the first time on the Dunes hike. Scott had to show him how to bite on the nozzle without chewing through it. The first dune was the toughest. Cody was determined that he wasn’t going to make it up.  He had a little meltdown, but kept walking through it.  Scott noted that it was only about five minutes of crying. Not too bad. We have been with other adorable children, who shall remain nameless, who meltdown a lot longer than that. Both kids enjoy whispering to us when they are not the star on stage, “I think we have a whine-a-lo sighting!” Scott coined the term a few years at the Cave of the Winds Visitors Center.

105 stairs up to the last dune.  Once we saw the sign that said we had officially made it Cody stripped off his Camelback and shoes.  He sat down for a little snack to savor his success.  Then we had another 105 stairs to go down to get us back to the Visitor’s Center.

We had a lunch of…cereal!  Normally we have turkey and cheese on crackers or bread or peanut butter and jelly, but the kids and I are PBJ’d out and we are out of everything else.  While I cleaned the lunch dishes in the bathroom (no, you aren’t supposed to do this) Scott entertained the cuties.  Usually bathrooms have signs prohibiting cleaning dishes or bathing in the bathrooms, but this one didn’t.  I moved quickly so as to not get any strange looks.  When I came out of the bathroom Brooke had Scott and Cody dancing to “Uptown Funk You Up.”  She has quite the moves and Scott and Cody aren’t too shabby either! Look for us on Broadway!

After lunch we went for another hike through the Great Marsh.  Even though it is called the Great Marsh it was really a swamp. We learned swamps are wetlands with trees and shrubs versus marshes which are wetlands with mostly soft plants like cattails.  Cody was a little hesitant about starting another “short” hike. The kids were thrilled to discover a park awaiting them on the other side of the hike.  Cody said to me on the way back to the Visitor’s Center, “Mom, sometimes when Dad says we are going on a short hike it isn’t so short, but this time it was!” Cody was also ecstatic about the chance to play in more sand.

We overheard a camp counselor at the Visitor’s Center tell her campers, “Sparkle and Shine, no Whine!”  It became the phrase of the day.  The ranger talk and hike at three was titled Dune Beasties up Close.  We took the same exact hike we had just taken, no we didn’t plan it that way, but with a ranger.  It was a completely different hike.  Brooke showed me what she had collected in her cup and said, “I didn’t see any of this stuff when we took the hike earlier!” Normally parks want you to take only pictures and discourage collecting of anything, but the ranger encouraged the kids to collect items to look at under magnification. We learned some of the differences between salamanders and lizards, as Cody is the certified lizard hunter on our hikes.  The ranger found a salamander for the kids. He also explained that the lid under the birdhouse we had seen earlier was to keep the water snakes from stealing the warblers eggs.  He showed us Witch Hazel seed pods that burst open under pressure in the fall to disperse their seeds.  He showed us an Ash Tree that had died from the Ash Beetle.  He explained that the forest service is not doing anything to stop the beetle, it is too expensive. He explained that diversity in ecosystems is important and that once the beetle has destroyed all the trees its food source will be depleted and so will it.  Then the Ash Trees can be reintroduced from nurseries.

After the hikes we were on a mission to canoe.  However, Lake Michigan was a bit rough today.

So, we followed the recommendation of someone from the Visitor’s Center and headed to Marquette Park in Gary, IN.

What’s that you say? Gary?  We know. We were a little confused too.  It was actually very beautiful and not anything like the Gary you see from the expressway.  We think we were on the Calumet River.  There were a handful of bridges we went under.  One was so low we had to duck to go under it.  The kids loved watching to see if we would make it under. Lucky for me I was in the front of the canoe! No fear, we made it!

Scott cut some cattails for the kids.  They sent me as a scout to one island, but I wasn’t too excited about the amount of broken glass that I found.  So Brooke volunteered to be the scout for the next path we saw.  She climbed up to the top and then shouted for us to leave the canoe and join her.  After we hauled the canoe onto the sandy pathway she led the way with Cody doing his best to keep on her heels.  They move so much faster when they are the ones creating the path.

The views from atop the sand dunes were incredible.  Brooke had run down the dune in the third picture above twice and then eagerly shouted that she needed to go to the bathroom, “Now!”  I looked at Scott and he happily stepped up to the challenge.  I thankfully followed Cody back to the canoe.

We slid back down the enormous dune we climbed up to our choose-your-own-adventure hike and headed back to the water to see what was still in store.  We found a beaver dam marking the end of our journey for the day.  It was a well-timed turn-around as the entire canoe adventure was an hour and twenty minutes and ended a little after six.

Spaghetti disappeared off our plates into our empty stomachs in less than five minutes.  The kids eagerly awaited the moment when Scott said they could play with the fire and we roasted marshmallows again.  Cody was so tired he suction-cupped himself to my leg and begged to go to sleep.  I emptied my barely sipped wine into Scott’s glass and tucked Cody in.  I could have gone back out and enjoyed the fire, but I was almost as exhausted as Cody. As Cody said the next morning, “I was out like a light.”

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