Chapter 12

Last night there was another loud thunderstorm, and this morning we woke up to rain. The last couple days have been very hot and humid, with high temperatures around 88-90, but a "feels like" of nearly 100. The air feels so thick, it's like you have to push through it. Luckily, the rain didn't last too long.

Today was mostly a driving day. To get to Ann Arbor, we had to start by driving nearly back to Chicago, because every route in the Midwest goes through Chicago! We crossed the Illinois River, and looked down on rows of barges full of coal. Do you wonder why Nora is asleep in all the driving pictures? Probably because we stay up late each night (this blog!), and then get up at 6:00 every morning. Illinois drivers drive fast, and do not care about speed limits or work zones. I was passed by a semi truck while driving 70+.

We remembered from our last trip, though, that just after Chicago, you cross into Indiana, and all along the southern tip of Lake Michigan is the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore.

It was windy, and not hot, so we walked along the lake, enjoying the soft sand and watching the big waves. Some people were swimming; the water wasn't cold, but it wasn't exactly warm either. We learned that because Lake Michigan is oriented north to south, it gets lots of wind and big waves, because the wind has all that distance to blow along. They had a pie graph with ship wrecks on it, and Lake Michigan has a good percentage of them -- more than would be expected just by size.

We ate lunch there, and then went to look at the 1933 World's Fair houses. They were built for the fair as houses of the future, and then barged over to the park after the fair. We all especially like the pink one.

After that, it was back in the car for the drive to Ann Arbor. The sky cleared, and there were just a few puffy clouds.

When we got to Ann Arbor, we weren't quite ready for dinner so we walked around town and across the campus and back on "the diag". It's an attractive campus with lots of brick buildings and and large area in the middle with grass and trees. We loved the cool air! We had a delicious dinner at a Lebanese restaurant, and then on to our motel.