July 10, 2019 Day 3 Indiana Dunes to Whitewater Memorial State Park, IN
The calm after the storm. Well sort of. Brooke woke us up at 4:40 alerting us to the rain that was drumming into our campsite and picking up speed and energy with every moment. Scott and I stumbled out of the tent still with our eyes half open and put the fly on the tent faster than I think we ever have. The timing just before sunrise allowed us to be able to see unlike most instances when we are woken up in the middle of the night. We rested for a few more hours, but no one really fell back to sleep.
Scott got up first and surveyed the mess we left for ourselves from the previous night. He also discovered that we left the back hatch open on the van all night long. We try to keep the hatch closed most of the time so we don’t get any sneaky stowaways. We’ve had mice and squirrels try to hitch a ride and enjoy our snacks. Scott caught a picture of me rushing out to the car to see if we lost anything. I still have flashbacks to 1997 when Scott and I were traveling the country and stopped at Arizona State University to see his friend for a few nights. I came out to the van early one morning to discover our bikes and roof top carrier full of our personal items lifted off the roof along with the Yakima. Yakima was kind enough to replace the entire rooftop carrier, and Scott worked with the insurance to get compensation for our personal items, but this morning when Scott was giggling and taking pictures at me flying out of the tent I was reliving that moment. But, it turned out alright. It doesn’t appear that anything is missing and we haven’t discovered any stowaways…yet. 🙂
The kids and I worked on rolling up the mats and sleeping bags while Scott cooked up some French Toast. I’m giving him a funny face because he is still making fun of me for flying out of the tent. The moral of today is all about keeping the calm despite the storm that comes your way. First we had a real storm, then we left open the van all night leaving us vulnerable, and then we had one more challenge left for us…
This campground had a perfect sink for doing dishes. Scott coached Brooke in washing the dishes while Cody and I worked on refilling the water jugs.
We finished cleaning up and then headed on the road. I drove for a bit while Scott tried to fix the blog picture upload problem. The van weighed down and in need of new shocks hit a gap on a bridge on the expressway really hard. And then the windshield wipers went on. And there was no way to turn them off. I thought maybe I was just really tired from not sleeping well, but no matter how I tried the wipers just kept on. So I pulled over at a gas station in Merriville, turned off the van, and the wipers kept going…
Scott moved the relay for the wipers around and figured out that was most likely the culprit. Thankfully an Auto Zone was right next to the gas station. $25 later we had our van back to normal.
Next on our mission for the day was lunch and shopping. We ate some premade subs from the grocery store and then went shopping. The boys were wrestling in the aisles.
Scott found a 911 memorial in Indianapolis.
We arrived at Whitewater Memorial State Park around 7. Cody and I set up the tent while Scott went and paid for our site. Then we headed to the beach and ate the “Wonder Chicken” Scott picked up at the local market.
