When I'm Back in Chicago, I Feel It - Part 2

Did you read Part 1?

When last we blogged, we were in Munster, Indiana at 3 Floyds Brewing for their annual Dark Lord Day celebration.

Atop a dune, looking over Lake Michigan with downtown Chicago in the background

After exiting the festival, we figured pizza sounded good, so we found our way to Tomato Bar Pizza Bakery, where we enjoyed a Greek salad topped with Jerk chicken and a small Goat Remix pie (lots of veg and goat cheese) - everything was delicious!  Crossing the parking lot, we made a quick run to Whole Foods for an olive oil refill and macaroons (what?  We were almost out of olive oil at home, and the self-serve macaroon cooler is always a Whole Foods highlight), and then it was back into the car toward our next destination.  

When I plan trips and search for activities in the area we'll be visiting, I try to have a few different options for attractions, museums, parks, and the like, so we can modify our plans as needed, depending on how we're feeling, how much time we have, what the weather is like, and so on.  In this case, the weather was nice enough to let us experience our preferred afternoon adventure, Indiana Dunes National Park!

The NPS map of Indiana Dunes NP - just to be confusing, there's also an Indiana Dunes STATE park nearby

Indiana Dunes is a super neat place.  The park is located right on the shore of Lake Michigan, so there's beachfront access to swim, build sand castles, and sunbathe, albeit in nicer weather.  Also, as you can see in the photo at the top of this blog post, you can see the downtown Chicago skyline from the dunes!  It was such a neat experience being in a dunal environment - windswept, quiet - and seeing such a major city right across the water.

We entered the park at the western end of things, where an extremely helpful ranger recommended the Dunes Succession Trail for some moderate hiking.  Off we went!

The trail starts with about .10 of a mile of deep sand, but you hit the stairs pretty quickly

As you can see, these dunes had full sized trees growing in them, which was a new one for us -

all of the dunes we've visited before have been completely barren of large scale vegetation,

either because of their composition (like the gypsum dunes at White Sands NP) or location
(dunes along salty bodies of water or in the middle of the desert).

Near the top of the staircase, you look out, and boom!  Lake Michigan!

Chicago!  It's my kind of town!

Heading over another section of the dune

And coming down the other side toward the beach

I really appreciate the super dramatic clouds in these pictures

Before too long, we hit the beach, where we strolled the short distance to the bathhouse and paved route back to the Visitor Center.

I don't think I've ever touched one of the great lakes!

It was cold!

Dang it!  It's wet, too!

Okay, that was fun, damp socks be damned!

Neat driftwood

"Are you taking a picture of me taking a picture of the driftwood?"

Upon our return to the Visitor Center, we got back in the car and drove to the eastern side of the park to see some houses and an even bigger sand dune!  First up, the houses - the park contains five private residences collectively known as the 1933 Chicago World's Fair Century of Progress Homes.  As the name implies, these buildings were originally displayed at the 1933 Chicago World's Fair, showcasing futuristic innovations like helicopter pads, electric dishwashers, and solar heating/lighting.  After the fair ended, real estate developer Robert Bartlett bought five of the homes and had them shipped by barge to their current location on the Indiana side of the lakeshore (he was trying to lure other folks into the area to buy homes in his subdivision - Beverly Shores - and the Fair houses were quite the draw.  His real estate business apparently was not doing well after the Crash of 1929).  Although you can only visit them one day a year on a special tour, you can drive past and take pictures whenever you want.

The Wieboldt-Rostone House

The House of Tomorrow, under renovation

All of the walls are completely glass, which makes it really toasty inside.

Apparently, workers building it at the Fair kept passing out from heat exhaustion.

The Armco-Ferro House

The Florida Tropical House

The Cypress Log Cabin

After cruising by the houses, we continued to the eastern-most point of the park, Mount Baldy, the largest sand dune under their jurisdiction.  It's pretty big!

And pretty sandy!

Tall human for scale

We weren't up for clamoring up Baldy (I'm also not sure that's allowed), so it was time to hop in the car and start the drive back to our Airbnb in Wicker Park.  Along the way, we hit traffic again (thanks, Beyonce!), but before too long, we were relaxing in the basement's living room, resting prior to once again hitting the town for the evening.

Our first stop of the evening was Lao Peng You, an amazing Chinese food spot focusing on noodles and dumplings (two of my top five food things, like, ever).  Even though we were there early (6:15pm), the wait was 45 minutes, but from reading reviews, we knew it would be worth it.  We wandered across the street to the Mariano's market to kill some time while we waited; initially excited to meander through a local grocery store, our enthusiasm waned when we realized it was just another Fry's/Kroger's brand, but it had a Starbucks cafe with available seating we used to good effect.  Eventually, the website you could use to track your table said we were 2nd in line, so we headed back right as my cell phone pinged with our "you're in!" text.  We were seated and commenced enjoying an amazing meal - per usual, I was too busy shoving food in my face to take pictures, so here are some from the interwebs (sorry these are small, but if I blew them up, they got blurry - just click on them if you want to make them bigger):

The cute little storefront.  Almost every place we ate on this trip was the size of a postage stamp.

Our particular four horsemen:

Dan dan noodles

Cong You Bing bread (stuffed with green onion and sesame)

Cucumber salad

Soup dumplings - we had the pork and dill option

Once again beyond full, it was time to stroll Wicker Park/West Town some more, in a valiant effort to digest some of the calories we'd just ingested.  We found our way to the Perch Kitchen and Tap; we originally planned to have drinks and dessert here, but we never found room for dessert.  Drinks it is!

Cool street art just around the corner from our Airbnb - we were clearly in the Puerto Rican section of town

At the Perch, enjoying my NA cocktail and watching the end of the UNF softball game

The space was huge and lovely - that's Chris'  hazy IPA on the bar there as well

After our big day spent at the metal fest and climbing dunes, we decided it was time to hit the hay, so it was back to the basement for one more night.  We were both up and at 'em early on Sunday morning, and we walked to nearby Letizia's Natural Bakery for our last breakfast in the city.  After enjoying our chai/cappuccinos and breakfast paninis, we grabbed some cookies for the road; we loaded the car, waved goodbye to West Town, and started our trip south.

Bye, Chicago!  Hope to see you again soon!

We made a quick stop for gas and bathrooms at Fair Oaks Farms, and then it was into Indy once again.  Like on our COVID trip last Labor Day, we stopped at the Garage Food Hall for lunch, choosing La Chinita Poblana (me) and Palavana Cubano (Chris).  While our food was fine, we both agreed that our picks last time (Lil' Dumplings Noodle Bar and Poke Guru) were quite a bit better - oh well, can't win them all!

Back on the road, we coasted around Cincinnati and into Kentucky, stopping to drop Chris at the Cincy Airport (I know that seems to be worded incorrectly, but the Cincy airport is actually over the state line into Kentucky - fun fact!); he was headed to Arizona for a week's work trip in Flagstaff, and catching a flight along our route worked perfectly!  I finished the drive home on my own, stopping to bust the girls out of their lodgings on the way.  Eventually, we were all cuddled up on the couch, enjoying being back after a great weekend getaway!

The girls are super excited about our car selfie

Sleeping beauties!

Later!

Amy