After getting lost in the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, deep in the woods on a tiny road with no dunes or even Lake Michigan in sight, we turned around and headed back to the Indiana Dunes State Park that led obviously to the lake shore and its white sandy dunes that were, as all state parks inevitably are, littered with people and trash. But I got to walk barefoot in the sand and let the Great Lakes greet me with a few waves over my feet. It's good to be home again. Since we weren't allowed to bring Casey onto the beach area, I couldn't get a picture of him and James running on the dunes--just one of them sitting on the beach wall waiting for me to come back from saying hello to the lake. And then my camera battery ran out, and I can't find where I packed the battery charger. So no more pictures from this part of our trip. Once we get to my mom's, I can go through everything and hopefully locate the charger!

For dinner we got lost in the tiny town of Portage looking for Clancy's Irish Pub and finally ended up at Kelsey's Steak House where we had fine fish dinners (fresh lake perch for me--breaded and fried as all good lake perch should be--and Cajun-style sea marlin for James)and perfectly yummy twice-baked potatoes (or "double baked" as they say here in Indiana). Casey apparently barked the whole time we were gone, as usual. We don't know why he was quiet that one night. It hasn't happened again.

Tomorrow we'll continue on to Cleveland, and then Tuesday finish our trip at my mom's house in Geneseo, NY. We discovered that Illinois has a penchant for stealing other states' place names: I took a picture of the exit sign for Geneseo, IL, but I just found out that with a dead camera battery, I can't even download the pictures off of it. So when I find my charger, I'll post that picture and one of James and Casey at the Dunes...