No Particular Place To Go

Tuesday, May 15, 2018

We’ve never before really traveled the way we are doing it this week-- ,no particular place to go,  or to be, and no plans until Thursday morning. Sunday was a quiet day--we did go out for some Chinese food and to get a few groceries. The Chinese restaurant (Waigu, I think it was called) advertised hand-pulled noodles, which looked very yummy. The noodles indeed were excellent, but we were less thrilled with the sauces--the curried chicken with the “cat’s ears” noodles was not very interesting, and the spicier sauce on the long noodles, although tastier, lacked complexity. We did end up with lots of leftovers, though! Joe let me do the shopping alone, and we went back to the RV to just relax.

Sunday night, we had more heavy rain--sheets of pounding on the roof, which sounded like being on a car inside a car wash. On Monday morning, the park ranger cam around and put “Site closed” signs on all the empty sites (there was only us left, and two others). She told me they were closing the campground and reassigning people who had already reserved sites for later in the week-- almost every site was soaked, many just bogs of mud. Ours was not mud, but there was water everywhere.

We packed ourselves up and went over to dump our tanks and refill our fresh water (which we’d used up completely the evening before.) Then Joe noticed that a bracket on the wheel cover, which held one of our tire monitors, had fallen off. So we spent an hour putting a new bracket onto the wheel (I need a manicure even more now.) We dumped, refilled, and after about 90 minutes, we were finally ready to leave the campground. At that point, we still had to put gas into the rental car (we filled the RV too), return the rental, and then find a place to refill the propane tank. It was about 1 pm at that point, and we found a local park to sit next to and eat a quick lunch, before heading out onto the highway.Joe drove for about an hour, and I drove for the rest of the way--about a 5 hour trip down the Interstates, through the Highway to Hell (I80-I94 south of Chicago), and finally a relatively easy 30 miles or so on I-94 in Indiana until we got to the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore.

Information Panel for the Century Of Progress Homes Exhibit 

The campground isn’t precisely on the lakeshore, unfortunately--but it was a very nice place with lots of trees, paved sites, an excellent bath house, and the price was right-- $12.50. (We get half-price with our senior pass.) The only thing we didn’t have was electricity, but with our tank of propane, our refrigerator was happy, and we have very good lanterns etc. so we were not in the dark. There weren’t many people there-- again, camping this time of year is very easy since it’s so early, and early in the week is ideal anywhere.  We settled in for a quiet night, and went to sleep fairly early. Even though we drove less than 250 miles, we were both surprised at how tired we were.

Today, Tuesday, we had absolutely no firm plans! I had done  little bit of research, and I decided we should first go down to the beach itself, and then maybe mosey on north--there are two state parks in Michigan within 50 or so miles of where we started, also right on Lake Michigan. So after a long walk with Cassie, and fresh biscuits for breakfast, we left our campsite at noon. We went down to the beach, only to discover that besides it being so overcast and cool, there was mist covering the lake--we could hardly even see much beyond the beach. Supposedly you can see the Chicago skyline, as well as the industry in the area of Gary, Indiana, along the coast-- but we saw nothing but mist.

"Florida Home"

However, we did find something completely unexpected-- a short stretch of road labeled “1933 Chicago World’s Fair Century” on my map. We found ourselves between some remarkable houses, and so we parked and got out to see what it was all about. It turned out that the houses (5 of them) were models for a Century of Progress exhibit at the Chicago World’s Fair. Each one had some particular special feature--one had a steel structure with a porcelain veneer, one was a “combination beach house and cruise ship”, one used a new kind of “maintenance free” composite stone, and one had walls made mostly of glass. They were beautiful houses, all of them, and after the fair, they were purchased and moved (4 by barge across Lake Michigan, and one by truck) to this stretch of beach to help publicize and encourage people to move to the town of Beverly Shores, a small resort community which was just being built. There are sign boards to explain the details of each particular house, and we lingered, reading them all and taking photos. I especially loved the pink Florida-style home, which would fit into any resort community. It sat on the ocean side of the road, just on the bluff overlooking the lake. Three of the houses on the land side are up off the road, so they all command views of the lake. They are all now on the National Register of Historic Places.

A 1933 House of the Future, with our own House of the Future

One interesting thing, though, is that all 5 houses are leased to private people, who are allowed to live in them while they are renovating them to their original styles. The glass-walled house was in the process of renovation, as was one of the others. Meanwhile I saw someone outside gardening at the Cedar House--it looked like that one was fully occupied. None of the others looked quite ready to be lived in.

We continued driving up the road and on through Beverly Shores (which is surrounded by the National Lakeshore holdings). It seemed that virtually ALL the houses we passed were quite distinct and unique architecturally. I took several photos of the houses, but didn’t have my camera out for the best shot of all--a yellow “caution-sign” type sign on the side of the road with a silhouette of a cat! I had never seen a “Cat Crossing” sign before, and was sorry to miss it.

This 1933 house is being renovated.

We followed the coastal road to its end and rejoined US 12, and just continued heading north. We stopped at a CVS to pick up some eye ointment (not to mention ice cream and cookies) and realized it was 3pm and we hadn’t eaten any lunch, since we’d left the campsite at noon. (We also noticed that we are back in the Eastern Daylight Time zone.) By that time, though, we were only 20 minutes from Warren Dunes State Park, just over the Michigan state line. So we continued on to there, and got a campsite in the park. All in all, we drove only 32 miles today.

 Again, we are right on Lake Michigan, but a mile away from it as the crow flies, so we’ll have to hope that tomorrow the weather is clearer, and we’ll try again for a nice view of the lake and maybe a little time sitting on the sand. Meanwhile, once again, we are just resting, reading, and drinking hot chocolates. This park, too, has a lot of flooded sites, but at least it hasn’t rained today. I understand they are having frightful storms right now in New Jersey, so maybe the rain we lived through all weekend has made it east. Here, it seems that the sky is much lighter, and some sun-type light seems to be falling through the trees, so I have hopes it will clear up tomorrow. A little warmer wouldn’t hurt, either!!

A modern private home in Beverly Shores, Indiana