Indiana Dunes National Park

I was reviewing my 50 state list and was looking at the 15ish states that don’t have a blog to go with them. (Because I visited as a child/didn’t have a blog when I visited) 

Indiana was one of those states. 

Sure, I’ve crossed into Indiana multiple times since we’re so close to the border, but my only touristy memories were of going to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the The Children's Museum of Indianapolis. Honestly, I don’t remember much and most likely didn’t really care about either one.  

I was trying to find some other things to do in Indiana and I came across the only national park- Indiana Dunes! 

Roman and I left Friday afternoon and had a 4.5 hour drive. We stopped at Cool Creek Park Nature Center in Carmel, IN to break up the drive and stretch our legs. We did the Beech Trail which took about 20 min and wasn’t that exciting. 

We made it to our condo just as the sun was setting! 

On Saturday, I woke up to see the sunrise from the condo and it was beautiful! I couldn’t go back to sleep so we started our adventure! 

Our first stop was the West Beach Dune Succession trailhead. It was nice because at 7:30am no one was really there and it wasn’t too hot! 

I think it was my favorite trail that we did!

We then went to Calumet dunes trailhead which was kind of lame, followed by Mt Baldy. 

After that we went back to the condo, had lunch, and took a little siesta. 

We went back out around 2pm and tried the Tolleston dune trails, but it was hot, Roman was tired and we didn’t make it that far. 

We also stopped at Portage lakefront and river walk and then got Roman a pup cup from Dairy Queen for being such a good boy! 

The next day we drove back home, but not without making a pit stop at Albanese home of the BEST gummies !! 

State 44: Iowa

I’ve been putting off writing my Iowa blog because I was disappointed with this portion of the trip.

Originally, when I planned on going to Iowa, I thought I would be driving from Cincinnati which meant I could stop at Maquoketa State Park. This looked like a really cool stop with trails and caves to explore. 

Unfortunately, since we were not driving to or from Ohio, we couldn’t make it happen. (4ish hours in the wrong direction)

We basically just spent a day in Des Moines and sadly there wasn’t a lot to do. We went to Papa John Sculpture Park (which was not that exciting) and then went to Grays Lake in the evening to see the pedestrian bridge lit up.  (I’m guessing they also have trails and things to do at the park) 

Since Mike was with me we spent a good chunk of time at Rook Room game lounge and cafe. We could rent out games to play and they actually had decent food there! 

We spent an even bigger chunk of time at the Des Moines airport! Our flight kept getting delayed and I think we spent over 9 hours waiting for the flight! The kicker was that the gate agent told us we couldn’t get on any sooner flights so we went to grab a bite to eat. When we came back to our gate after dinner, everyone was gone… they let them board an earlier flight! Oh my gosh we were so mad, but also laughing because seriously?!  There were literally 10 of us on the flight out so they upgraded us all to first class for our flight to Chicago. We weren’t able to get home until the next day. 

Again, really wish we could have stopped at the caves so I guess we’ll have to go back to make up for this go round.