Big Shoulders

We gave Chicago a big, wide, 120-miles-out-of-the-way bypass en route from Milwaukee to Indiana Dunes State Park, which is about 60 miles east of downtown Chicago, on the very southern tip of Lake Michigan.

We settled in at a lovely, busy and very-difficult-to-reserve campground in the state park – which is surrounded by Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore – and then immediately began preparations to head back west to the same City of Chicago that we had just spent all day trying to avoid.

This may sound a little crazy, and six months ago when I was putting the trip together I wondered if it might be. But it all worked out as planned and on Saturday morning we rode our bikes a couple of miles on a beautiful bike path to catch the South Shore Line Train (which has been running from South Bend, Indiana to downtown Chicago for more than a century) and, a little over an hour later, we we met up with Tex and Rachel at a Starbucks in Millennium Station.

It was a beautiful day for the four of us to attend the Chicago Hotdog Fest in Lincoln Park and tour the Chicago History Museum, which included a cool exhibit of some of the thousands of photos taken by the phenomenal “nanny photographer” Vivian Maier.

Afterward we dropped by the north side apartment that Rachel and Tex rented for the summer, looked at the great photos Rachel took on their trip to Europe and went out for a tasty meal together.

After a night spent in what may very well be the world’s most expensive Super 8 Motel (I did not see a single truck driver) we got back together with the happily-engaged couple and mass transited downtown for the famous architecture boat tour.

This might be a good venue for next year's Hotdog Fest?

Soon enough we were back on the train, back on the bikes and back home at the trailer.

Our laconic Monday bicycle tour on the quiet back roads of Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore seemed like a long way from the hustle and bustle of the weekend even though we could see the Chicago skyline across the lake on a beautiful, sunny day.

Look close and you may see the Chicago skyline across the lake.

On Tuesday we moved to Dayton, Ohio for a two-night stay at a KOA. This might strike readers as an odd move, and it felt that way to us too. But the purpose was to finish off our 2014, six-week, “really get to know” tour of Ohio that was abruptly truncated by the untimely death of a close friend that caused us to return to San Antonio before we could get to Dayton, the final stop on our Ohio tour.

So we returned to eastern Ohio and were greeted by what was, by far, the hottest, most humid weather of the trip.

However, we braved the elements and a few downpours for what may turn out to be one of the fullest and most rewarding days of the summer. Basically it was a full immersion plunge into aviation history that began with a morning stop at the Wright Brothers Bicycle Shop in downtown Dayton (home to the visitor center for the Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park), an afternoon traipsing through the monstrous National Museum of the United States Air Force at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, an evening jaunt to the Colonel Charles Young Buffalo Soldiers National Monument near Xenia, Ohio and, finally, a stop at a brewpub in an obscure strip center in a Dayton suburb that served what Betsy described as; “one of the best hamburgers I’ve ever eaten.”

The beer was pretty good too and it was a great way to, finally, wrap up our “really get to know” tour of Ohio.

Betsy is sky-high about this visit to yet another NPS site.

After the initial trip to Kitty Hawk for tests Wilbur and Orville returned to Dayton and spent several years perfecting their flying machine with ever-longer flights around this farm field, storing the machine in the shed and using the catapult to help launch it.

It's difficult to describe the immensity and scope of the Air Force Museum but it is staggering. I took this photo of the jet that served as Air Force One from Kennedy through Clinton (which carried the body of JFK back from Dallas after Johnson was sworn in on the plane with Jackie beside him) from the plane that Eisenhower used. From the first plane the Army purchased to the Stealth bomber the actual planes, not replicas, are on display in this incredible museum.

So, just in case you are wondering, the stops at the various National Park Service sites mentioned in this blog post have increased Betsy’s total to 179 and mine to 253; out of the more than 400 NPS units. Also, we have now visited all four of the NPS national lakeshores and all 10 of the NPS units in Ohio.

We’ve moved on now to an RV Campground at the Indiana State Fair in Indianapolis, but details about that and the Illinois State Fair in Springfield will have to wait for a future post.