Indiana Dunes National Park
Week with Jess’ Family | Driving from Iowa to Michigan | Visiting Indiana Dunes National Park | April 2025
Following our month in Davenport, we had two weeks before we needed to be in Pennsylvania. This gave us the perfect amount of time to spend a little time with both of our families, travel halfway across the country, and of course, give Curtis some much needed time to relax between outages.
Well, that being said, he ended up working remotely a lot more than expected during this time. What he expected was a few meetings and follow up correspondence following the outage he just completed, and writing reports. Instead, another plant started having issues and it turned out that he was the most qualified and knowledgeable person to call. And so they did, multiple times a day for a week, and there was even one night when he was up from 1-5 AM answering the phone. The better option for them would have been just hiring him to travel to their site during their outage in the first place, but they thought they would save money by not doing that. Oh well, maybe we’ll get to go there next year, and all this just resulted in some lost sleep and easy overtime hours.
Anyway, all that didn’t overshadow the fun we had spending time with family! We arrived at my parent’s home in Iowa just in time for my sister’s birthday, so we got to see everyone together right away. We relaxed, went for walks with the dogs, ate home cooked meals, and played with our niece and nephew, who are growing up way too fast in the months between our visits!
There was a little drama on the day we had planned to leave Iowa, with the height of the other plant’s problems happening, and we almost thought we would have to forgo our extra week spent in Michigan and plans to travel slow. But after taking all day to decide, they ultimately told Curtis that they just wanted remote assistance, so our plans remained the same. And we were sure glad they did, because we had planned a route for our drive to Michigan that involved taking two days and getting us some new counties in Illinois and Indiana, as well as a much needed night back in our van!
We said our goodbyes on a Sunday afternoon, then began our drive East, taking I-80 into Illinois. When we arrived in Morris, we got off the interstate to avoid Chicago area traffic and instead took the scenic route, driving through Braidwood and then following the Kankakee River on IL-113. We had a few options for camping tonight, and decided to try out the first ones we came to on this route. These were both located within Kankakee River State Park, but when we arrived, we found that both were still closed for the winter. Thankfully, we had another option that was another 45 minutes away, which looked like it was open year-round.
We continued driving, getting two new counties in Illinois before we arrived at the Illinois/Indiana state border, which our intended campground was almost on top of. The campground is within Willow Slough Fish & Wildlife area on the Indiana side, just past the visitor center next to the lake. There were quite a lot of sites here, and only one other one was occupied by another van. We spent some time outside walking Charlotte, had a light dinner mostly consisting of snacks, then settled in to the van for the night. It felt so great to be back in our own bed, we truly sleep so well in this cozy little space that Curtis built!
The next morning, we had a ~4 hour drive to Curtis’ parent’s home in Michigan, and Curtis had to call into a meeting at 10. We realized that because of the route we were taking and the timing, this would be the perfect chance for us to visit Indiana Dunes National Park — a park we’ve driven past an embarrassing amount of times to have never stopped before!
We had an early start to our day, skipping our normal breakfast routine so that we could arrive with enough time before Curtis’ meeting. We took IN-14 to US-421, giving us 3 new counties in Indiana.
We arrived in Michigan City just after 9AM, and based on where we were and not wanting to backtrack too much, we decided to visit the Easternmost part of the national park. Unfortunately this meant we couldn’t get cancellation stamps this time, but we already know we’ll drive I-80 through this area many more times in the future so surely we will make another stop here someday, right?! For today, we drove to the Mt. Baldy parking lot, and prepared ourselves for a little walk before Curtis’ meeting.
When we arrived, it was a little brisk outside, but it didn’t feel too cold. However, we could hear that it was a little windy, and knowing that it would likely be colder by the lake, we put on our coats, which felt like a little overkill at the time. However, after walking on the trail through the dunes, we arrived at our first overlook of the lake, and right away were hit by strong gusts of wind that never really let up during our time here!
We were very brave in spite of the wind (or maybe just stubborn), and we continued our walk down to the lake shore and followed it a ways to the West. At quarter til 10, Curtis turned around and returned to the van to call in to his meeting, while Charlotte and I walked a little further, then slowly made our way back. While I can by no means call this a beautiful national park…I can say that we had a nice little walk all alone here, besides being pelted by sand and strong winds, and that’s all that matters. It was a little disappointing that despite this being called the Mt. Baldy trailhead, you can’t actually climb up the Mt. Baldy dune, and when we arrived at the first lookout, we were met with the iconic Indiana Dunes view…of a coal power plant and other nearby industrial buildings. But with decent visibility, we were also able to see the Chicago skyline in the distance, which was pretty cool, and maybe there’s better hiking in other parts of the park. Also, I’m pretty sure I’ve visited the park before, 22 years ago while visiting friends in the area back when it was just a national lakeshore. I seem to recall running around on the dunes, also on a cold and windy day, and as a kid it was a fun experience so maybe we can find that spot one day.
After Curtis’ meeting finished, we had a late breakfast and tea, then got back on the road for another 2 hours of driving. It was a difficult drive with high winds, but we finally made it to Curtis’ parent’s house where we spent the week. More on that, coming up next!
