Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore

Friday, after my research students presented at an end-of-the-summer research symposium, my family and I traveled to Valparaiso, IN. Along the way, we traveled near the town of Aroma Park, IL.  A history of its name is posted at http://www.firstnerve.com/2009/09/whats-in-name.html.  On Saturday, we drove a little further up to the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore.  One of my main motivations was that I like for the girls to do Junior Ranger stuff with the National Park system.  Our travel budget was limited this year, so I took to the web to find a location close by. (Kris has already done Lincoln's home.)  This place was not only close, but it also let kids up to age 15 do the program.  One aspect of the Junior Ranger program is that it usually pushes the people filling out the booklet to explore quite a few areas of the park.  In addition to the badges, the park also gave out patches to those who participated in smaller programs. We attended a wildland firefighter presentation where the girls had a chance to dress up and pump water on a "fire".  The little package that the fireman is holding in the first picture is an emergency fire shelter - thankfully nobody has had to use one in the confines of the park. Then we walked on a trail over some same dunes to learn about ecological succession - the sand was hot by late morning and I'm not convinced that Kris's strategy of running on the sand was entirely successful.  From the dunes and the nearby beach we could barely see some of the tall buildings of the Chicago skyline over 28 miles away (best seen on the horizon on the picture with the lifeguard station). We could also see some steel mills, which were much closer. After lunch, we went to one of the beaches and played around for a while. I did not get to Mount Rushmore like I really wanted to do this summer, but at least I got to a place that had four sculpted faces in an area protected by the National Park Service! The girls and I also found a beautiful mermaid on the beach. After that, we visited a couple of historic homestead areas.  The girls were "sworn-in" as Junior Rangers after 5 pm, and though we would have loved to stay another day or two, we headed back to Valparaiso to eat at a Red Robin and drive through Valparaiso University.  On the way back to Peoria from our marathon day I saw a couple of collapsed electrical towers in northwestern IN, here is a link to an article about that:  http://posttrib.suntimes.com/news/porter/20715574-418/portion-on-indiana-2-will-remain-closed-for-three-days-due-to-storm-damage.html Today was less eventful, I got stung by  wasps a couple times from a couple nests while mowing the lawn - getting to be that time of year.  Kris had a get-together with friends tonight, and Karen went to help prepare her classroom for student teaching this fall.