Indiana Dunes State Park

"Connie, look, the sun!" said Carol as she got up. I had already noted the sunshine and my mood quickly improved. It had been the first sun since being here. I had a hike planned at Indiana Dunes State Park, a 2000-acre park along Lake Michigan that provides the one natural haven between steel mills and power plants. I hike here everytime I come back to this area. The cold blue skies and calm winds meant my hike would be a good one.

A good, but still very cold one. The winter gear I had bought this past summer on-line proved invaluable: my Kayland mountaineer boots, my OR snowboarding pants and my Mammut men's small ski jacket all kept me comfortably warm. Only my nose was cold.

My hike started shortly after 11am after a short visit to the park's old beach house, built early in the 20th century when this part of Indiana was a playground for the Gilded Age. The building's facade is looking worn, and the paint inside is peeling off, but the building still stands as a memory of what this place was surely like when eastern European immigrants, like my paternal grandfather, were lured to the nearby steel mills for decent jobs.

I walked toward the shoreline but a thick layer of iced slush pervented me from reaching the waterline, where white-capped waves splashed ashore. It was best to keep my distance as I wanted to keep my feet dry.

The park road was slick driving in. It had been plowed but not salted. One large, older-model sedan was already stuck over a side rail, victim of a reckless and very embarrassed male driver. There is no admission here in the winter (otherwise I would have started this hike on the park's far eastern perimeter) and I drove to the trail head near the Nature Center, along a short boardwalk where trail #10 begins.

Other cars were already parked here, and two young women got out ahead of me to start a late morning jog. I didn't see any one else along the trail until I got back to near the trail head again.

I hiked mostly trails 10 and 9. Trail #10 is also the "Indian Portage Trail" which follows eastward along the bogs, then turns toward the lake two miles into the trail. It's a very diverse trail and also the longest one in the park. The lakefront was slushy and further up the beach the sand was even iced over. One lone seagull flew nearby and the few people I saw were a few miles west on the beach, perhaps near the old beach house.

I could see the distant Chicago skyline. I climbed up over a sand dune, rested a bit, then continued downhill on Trail #9 back to the trail head, completing a six-mile loop through the forest. I was back at the van at 2. The thermometer registered 28F.

I drove on to Michigan City, photographed the lighthouse, then drove back to Valparaiso. A quick stop at Target to get new windshield wipers proved to take longer than expected as everyone was at Target. I rested an hour at the Barnes and Noble across the street, downloaded my hike photos, and then Erin called. We had arranged a dinner date and chose the TGI Friday's next door.

That proved to be a disappointment. I had a chicken Parmesan pasta dish that was too oily. We sat at a corner table near the bathrooms and I had to flag down a server for soda refills. The bill was a whopping $34 and most of that was for the sodas we had. I am still tempted to fill out the on-line survey to let the chain know I wasn't happy with the food. With all the great locally-owned restaurants in the Region, there is no excuse to eat at a national chain again.

It had dropped down to 18F once we left the restaurant. I stayed overnight at Erin's place, chatting briefly with Kristin who came over with her white German shepherd dog Buddy. I took lots of photos again before Kristin left and Ethan went to bed. Erin's cat chewed on my watchband all night long.

Christmas with the family

Christmas this year was mellow. I had gone straight to Erin's place in Chesterton once I got to the area, spent the night there, then had a lovely lunch with her and Ethan before heading down to Carol's place in Crown Point , 30 miles west,where I finally spread my stuff out. I really did overdo the packing again, bringing more clothes than I know I will wear.

I had no desire to shop for anything else once I got here. Now that I was back in"The Region" I wanted to enjoy the end-of-tour and simple relax with the family. It was cold out, and that first night here another 3-4 inches of snow fell. The sky remained a dark grey, greyer in the western sky, and cold. We had a White and cold Christmas.

C'mas Eve I was with Carol at her brother John's house, which is always a blast as the company and food are great. I have grown old with John and Ruth (they are only a few years older than me) and they are also new grandparents. This year Ruth's older brothers John and Roger and their wives were also at the party.

I didn't see Eric until late on C'mas Day when he came over with Erin in one car. He dozed off on the couch all day because he had been working eight straight days. He didn't seem all too excited to see me, and he didn't seem all too enthused with the presents I got him (both which bummed me out a bit but I need to be patient with his as he's been working a lot). Erin seemed busy and preoccupied as well, and easy to irritate, but she told me that Eric is reclusive with everyone and not just me. "Don't take it personal, Mom."

But when Carol asked me what my kids got me for Christmas, I found myself on the defensive. They got me the usual: nothing. My children have never been giving people and they don't make enough money to afford being spendthrifts, but I know they are used to me showering them with presents. It's a habit I have to break MYSELF out of to avoid being disappointed every Christmas.

It's not the family that bums me out, it's the area. Northwest Indiana, with its many industries, is such a depressing area with its steel mills, air pollution, trashy streets, brown slushy roads and lack of any scenery. People driving through the state on the Indiana Toll road don't even see the pretty dunes because the belching mills and power plants overwhelm the horizon.

Shopping and eating out are past times here. Every time I come here in the winter I get those depressing flashbacks from my teen years here. Oh, how I hated this place back then, with its bigotry, ignorant working masses smoking and drinking their lives away. I felt out of place then, and I still feel out of place today. I feel no shame for having deserted this place years ago.

And yet so much of my family is here, I have no option but to return to this place every few years.

Driving across the Great Plains

I finally left the house a few minutes shy of 11am last Tuesday. I drove along the border on USHwy 90, through Douglas and the heavily-surveilled area NE of town where Rancher Bob was killed earlier this year. There were several Sheriff and USBP vehicles all along that stretch, but I never saw any people. It's as if all those who had wanted to be with family over the holiday had already left for the trip. Weather on the first day was ideal: warm, blue sky and little traffic.

There were more USBP along NM9, another eerie but pretty road that hugs the border. I turned north when I got to Columbus, and drove I-10 into Las Cruces.

I had a major blowout on the transition ramp from I-10 and I-25, just as the evening was setting. My saving grace was that I wasn't driving fast when my tire blew, there wasn't much traffic and I was able to pull off the road and call AAA. (The first things the dispatcher asked me was if I was safe and if I was safely off the road; I answered "yes" to both). My van has Chinese-made Hankook tires I was coerced into buying. I will never buy that brand again.

That blowout cost me $188 and three hours of driving. I missed watching the rising Solstice Full Moon over White Sands. Lesson learned. I ate dinner at a Carl's Jr and read more of "Memoirs of Ulysses S Grant Vol I" while eating, so all was not lost.

However, despite a new tire the tire pressure monitor remains lighted. I hope it's just the cold weather.

I only made it 540 miles that first night, pulling over south of Clovis, NM to a cool-to-cold night with the cows. The next morning there was a chilling fog across the valley that followed me well into Armarillo, TX and the Panhandle. I was now no longer in the desert but in the cold Staked Plains that Mark and I had explored a few years before. I will always enjoy that area and its red soil. It was here that I began seeing unique roadside attractions like giant Cowboys, antique cars and plastic cows on top of old slaughter houses. It's a photographer's delight with the variety of things to capture.

I didn't warm up until I neared the Oklahoma border on Day II and stopped at an interstate rest stop designed like a Route 66 museum. The place offered clean rest rooms and free WiFi. The rest stop was also a designated tornado shelter (built on a hill top?!) The rest of the drive from Oklahoma to Springfield, IL followed old Route 66, although the old Route 66 was mostly an old frontage road along the interstate.

The drive was very scenic, and it remained scenic even across Oklahoma, which was not anywhere near as flat and ugly as I remembered it to be. I was expecting to be inundated with religious messages along the interstate, and although I did see a lot of churches and ministry buildings in OKC (I believe the majority of them are in OKC), I also saw my share of ADULT BOOKSTORE billboards near the churches. Churches and pornography go so well together here

I avoided the Toll Road and existed I-44 outside Oklahoma City, driving eastward on a parallel road north of the city that went straight into Tulsa to the Missouri state line, where I saw another near full moon rise over the flatlands. I made it to Springfield, MO where I got a room at the "Ozark Inn" that offered me a comfortable bed for the night and a decent cable TV selection, but in which the heat never got warm enough to get comfortable in.

My final drive was across Missouri and into Illinois and arriving in Northwest Indiana at 9pm at my daughter's place. By the time I reached Kankakee, IL I could see the darkbrown rusty northern horizon of Chicagoland, I could smell the steelmill sulphur and I knew I didn't have much further to go. It also felt warmer there than it did in central MO where my van thermometer dipped into the upper 20s.

I liked what I saw of Missouri off I-44 but by the time I got to that state I was getting antsy of the drive and wanted to make good time. I hope to enjoy parts of the Ozarks on my return trip; I may even drive the same way as I drove going out as it was scenic, diverse and historic. I didn't even see ground snow until I crossed the Mississippi River into Illinois, and that is where I lost the blue sky for the rest of my travel.

Kevin says I made good time on this drive. I only pushed myself on Day II because of the lag I started with on Day I. I only stopped to pee and gas up; most of my food came from eating salted peanuts from a plastic jar. Rather than listening to local PBS stations (I did that only for hourly newscasts a few times a day), I entertained myself splendidly listening to audio books: Laura Bush's "Spoken from the Heart" and "The autobiography of Mark Twain" which was a true delight once I got past the first two introductory discs.

The price for gasoline remained steady across the Plains, $2.79-$3.09. I paid mostly $2.79 and only once paid $3.09 in central Illinois. Prices were higher the closer I got to Chicago ($3.34 was the highest) but dropped to just below $3 when I crossed into Indiana.

It's a 1950-mile drive that can be comfortably driven in 4-5 days and I plan on taking my time going back, perhaps exploring more of "the middle." all that is weather-dependent, as that storm that blew across California on Monday came through here last night with 3-4" of snow. It's the Upper Northeast that is going to get hit hard tomorrow, from DC all the way to Maine. It's been a year since the last blizzard there.

Leaving for Indiana

Today is my first time in three years that I am driving to Chicagoland for Christmas. Although Chicagoland got hit with more snow today, the drive itself should be eventless for me.

California is getting pounded with heavy rains and that storm is moving over Arizona tonight, but I should be far east by then. A mild temperature surge will follow me eastward. I don't expect to see snow until Missouri.

My van is packed. I plan on leaving soon, but watching the full lunar eclipse last night has delayed my departure by a few hours. The eclipse was beautifully eerie, as it got so cold and windy the darker it got. I lay on the driveway taking photos with my Canon SX210IS point-and-shoot camera, which took amazingly clear photos until the moon lost its radiance and the sensor did not know where to focus. The next full lunar eclipse on a winter solstice will be in 2092. I don't plan on being around for that one.

The house is no where near as clean as I had hoped it would be; the floor needs mopping and some stuff still needs to be put away.

My van is full of stuff for the kids. There won't be much room to get comfy in at all.There's a full moon tonight; I hope the skies are clear enough to see it. It's also winter solstice. I don't want to leave Kevin but I'm looking forward to seeing Ethan again.

Another end of semester

I had my last final Wednesday night, my Spanish final. I took my time, going over all my answers and finding a few mistakes along the way. By the time I turned in my paper there were only three other people remaining: Sheila, Kristi and Juanita, all who have sat around me all semester long. The instructor had all the other papers stacked on her desk and was already grading them. I took out my new eReader to read while she graded, as I was in no hurry.

"Do you want to know your grade?" she asked.
"Yes, but take your time!"
"You got an A."
"But you haven't even looked at my paper!"
"I know you, Connie. You got an A!"

Oh, if life were only so easy. But in her defense I'd gotten As all semester long on all homework, in-class assignments, quizzes and tests that if I had failed the final I could have still gotten an B. I had reviewed the grammar all day anyway.

I'm glad I finally took that Spanish course. I really should have taken it sooner. Knowing better Spanish would have made my trips along the Rio Grande back in early 2008 even more interesting. I'm already signed up for the next course and I'm considering taken the intermediate course next fall. I enjoy a culture more when I understand the language better. And when one understands the culture and language, one understands the people as well.

There were several native speakers in this course. Besides Juanita (an older, passionate woman in love with her heritage) there were two men who sat in the back of the class. They consistently chatted in Spanish to each other, speaking a lingo Juanita said was typical of the northern Sonoran dialect. Both men had grown up speaking Spanish but both had trouble reading it. They didn't seem to take learning the language seriously, though, and were not the best students. Juanita said she struggled herself with the grammar, but now better understands her mother tongue. I like Juanita. I always enjoyed listening to her experiences in Mexico and her childhood memories.

If only the violence along the border would relent! It's only gotten worse in the last two years. A few days ago a USBP agent was killed in southern Arizona while pursuing a group of drug smugglers in the Rio Rico area, a hilly region known for its drugs and smuggling. The murderer from the March killing of a rancher near Douglas also remains unsolved.

***

We have had an unusual warm winter all month so far. I witnessed a spectacular Monday night meteorite shower while walking the dogs late that night. The Geminids were at their peak and I purposely delayed their nightly walk to watch the meteors. I counted 22 during the brisk 2.2-mile walk around the neighborhood, finishing with a very stiff neck as I kept my head up to the sky. I only tripped once while walking the dogs.

We got some overnight rain though, our first rain since October. The sun's not up yet so there's no telling if we got any snow on the peaks. I'm hiking up Miller Peak with a few others tomorrow and we are hoping for some snow.

I'll be leaving for Indiana on Tuesday. I have a van full of goodies this time, having bought C'mas presents since August. I dread the long drive since there's already so much snow east of Tulsa, and nightly lows into the 20s and 10s. Car camping and hiking won't be as much fun this time. I still have to plan my packing, get my stuff organized, clean out my office and turn recyclables and used clothes over to the respective charities that I'll be busy all weekend long.

I will be studying ahead during this break, learning more Spanish, reading up on Modern History and listening to more downloaded podcasts from the University of California. One can bash California for all its worth, it still has the best overall History podcasts out there. Its professors at San Diego, Berkeley and LA all have great courses to offer for free to the listening public.

I enjoyed my Medieval History and Women in Literature courses as well. Next semester I'm taking on History of Mexico post revolution, English Lit I, Biology I and Spanish 102. The one class that I need for my History concentration, however, is not offered next semester. That's where the UC podcasts will come in handy as I still plan on listening to the USCD courses on Modern History since 1648 because I still plan on taking the state exams in both History and English this coming spring. And who knows? Maybe Spanish will follow in a few years.

Next year is my last year of low-level courses. I will have taken all the courses I've been wanting to take. Unfortunately, the school district continues to cut back its resources and teachers continue to be laid off. I hardly worked this semester because of this. This was great for my studying time but not good for my spending money. Thankfully Kevin's raise went through and we are financially well off. With empty houses still lingering in our neighborhood, that is a good thing.