Our Kind of Town... Chicago is! and our last stop, Indiana Dunes National Park
We wrapped up the last week of our trip with some urban camping. How do you visit a big city when you are towing a big camper and have 2 dogs with you? It's a challenge, and something we only did one other time, when we visited Boston in 2018. This time was more challenging because the closest campground was 60 miles northwest of the city. I ended up booking the campground with the plan of leaving the camper there while we traveled into the city to stay the night, which also meant boarding the dogs in a kennel. I contacted the owners of the KOA where we were staying and asked for recommendations for local kennels. They gave me the name of the kennel they personally use, I researched them online, and it worked out perfectly. We dropped Loki and Bucky off at 8A, took the 9A, 1.5 hr commuter train into the city, spent the night at a hotel, and reversed the trip the next day.
CHICAGO!
Day One
This was the first trip for all of us to Chicago and with less than 2 days we were total tourists. We packed only what we could carry in our backpacks and off we went. Our first stop was Navy Pier for pictures and lunch.
We then headed to the Magnificent Mile to see all the shops. We just took it all in as we walked, watched people, and awed at the buildings. I booked a hotel right on the Chicago River, near Millenium Park and dropped our bags off to lighten our load. We didn't rest long and kept on moving. Next stop was Millenium Park to see "The Bean" and other outdoor art.
Grant Park and Buckingham Fountain was the next order of business. I love this fountain and the skyline behind it. We also were able to take in Lake Michigan once again along with the newest art sculpture installed on the anniversary of George Floyd's death.
From Grant Park we made our way to the Willis Tower, aka Sears Tower, to take in a skyline view of the city from The Skydeck. We were also given 2 min on the The Ledge to take as many pictures as we could.
After the Willis Tower we made our way back towards the hotel and stopped for some pictures outside the Art Museum, then it was time for an iconic dinner at Giordano's for Chicago Deep Dish Pizza. It was sooooo good.
By this time we had walked over 10 miles and retired to the Hyatt Regency Hotel for some cool night time views from our room.
Day Two
The next morning we left our hotel for a Architecture Boat Tour on the Chicago River. A totally worthy, touristy thing to do. We all enjoyed it and partially because we had a teacher as our tour guide. She did a fabulous job and talked for almost the entire 1.5 hours.
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| Me taking a picture of Brodey taking a picture. |
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| 3rd tallest building in Chicago and designed by a woman! |
After the tour we did some shopping on the Magnificent Mile and I was excited to get some Harry Potter Legos at the Lego Store. Then it was time to make our way back to the train. We journeyed along the River Walk for our last sites of Chicago.
Total walking day two...7 miles.
Summary...cool sites, great outdoor art, fabulous food, tall buildings, tired feet, priceless time together.
Indiana Dunes National Park, est 1966 as a National Lakeshore and 2019 as a National Park
Our last official stop in this amazing 5 weeks trip was Indiana Dunes National Park. Note: The roads outside of Chicago are awful and what should have been a short drive took much longer than expected. But we arrived at the very beautiful visitor center early afternoon and found which of the beaches within the park that we could park the camper and take the dogs. There are many beaches along the shore of Lake Michigan- our return to the Lake since the first week of our trip. We spent some time visiting Central Beach walking the shore while Brodey took a dip in the lake. This park is one of those unique ones where you are driving through marsh and woods, then walking through woods, and then all of a sudden there are the dunes, beach, and then Lake Michigan.
The park also contains hiking trails, bogs, wetlands, 15 miles of shoreline, and surrounds Indiana Dunes State Park. From what we saw, we liked Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore much better but I am sure this National Park has hidden gems we just missed in our 1/2 day visit.
Because it is such a new National Park, not all of their signs have been changed to reflect its status.
Well, that's a wrap for this year's 5 week, 2021 adventure but not the end of our camping season. Doug and I will be out again in a few weeks for some camping without kids!
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