Beaches and BBQ: Day 3

After a good nights sleep in the T@B, we were off - crossing Ohio into Indiana. A lot of the day was spent doing this:


That’s Juliet driving. Lots and lots of driving. We can definitively say that we like the rest stops in Ohio better than those in Indiana. (We have to stop a lot, since we’re getting less than 300 miles out of a tank of gas in the Odyssey.) One joy of having the trailer: we heated up leftovers rather than eating McDonalds for lunch. (I’m not sad for getting that full order of pork and potatoes Friday night after all.)

Our destination tonight is Indiana Dunes State Park. I had seen pictures of this park years ago in a book, National Geographic Guide to State Parks, that I had bought from a discount rack. The park, which borders a national park, consists of large sand dunes on the shores of Lake Michigan. I pestered Juliet during our trip planning to plan a stop there - and we’re glad we did.

We climbed my namesake (192 feet above sea level):


And we walked on the beach for a while. 70 degrees, sunny, and a nice breeze. Lovely.

Even more lovely was dinner. We had found a barbeque place, Smokey's Southern BBQ, mentioned on line, Located in Chesterton, it’s right down the road from the park. It turned out to be delicious.

Juliet got a ½-rack of ribs

And I got a plate of pulled pork.

Perhaps as important, they had fantastic pie. I was let down by the pie at the diner yesterday, so I needed pie redemption. We found it here, with a slice of blackberry pie. The banana cake with cream cheese icing was great too.

This picture looks like I was hogging all of the dessert. Not true. (Notice the beautiful pies on the shelf behind me. So tempting. So hard to have just one.)

Tom

Packed and off! (Day 1 of big trip)

After slowly packing for something like two weeks, with piles of stuff and lists all over the place, we finally got everything into the car.

It looks bad, but consider everything we have:
Clothes for weather ranging from snow to summer
A Weber Q barbeque grille
Port-a-potty (in a closed box)
The 10x10 screen room
Two mountain bikes (the kayaks and paddles are on the van's Thule roof rack)
Equipment for biking, hiking, and kayaking

And in the end, there actually remained a bare spot of carpet on the floor. (Well, there was - we've covered it with stuff by now.)



And the obligatory start-of-trip odometer shot (note how we're thoroughly out of warranty on the van):


We drove to my parents in Pennsylvania, but didn’t camp in their driveway. On the way, we stopped for Portuguese food on the outskirts of East Stroudsburg. We’ve passed by it before, and thought it to be an unlikely place for such a restrauant, but finally stopped. Glad we did - it was really good.

Tom’s Diet Tip of the Day: When asked if you want a “half-portion” or a “full-portion,” get the half portion. I’ve got the full portion - and have enough pork and potatoes for three days. (It’s in the trailer frig.)

I would have taken a picture of the place - but when we left, it was pouring rain, so we made a mad dash to the van. The sudden downpour had dumped a lot of water - there were several inches of flood water in places. We drove though it slowly and got to my parents fine.

I've mentioned before how everyone in the campground watches (there isn't much else to do) as you back into a spot. I couldn't even back into my parent's driveway without their neighbor having a stare. Oh well - at least I didn't back over the mailbox.

Tom

The second trip

Since the first trip went so well, we decided to do it again - same place, even the same campsite. (The nice lady who ran the office even kept our Ready, Set, Tow! checklist card for us; guess it had fell out of the Odyssey. "Are you the ones with the cute little trailer?" Yep - and the picture on the card matched.)

This time we stayed two nights and cooked a few meals there. The campground was wonderfully located; we left one car there, drove another car to the kayaking put-in upriver, and paddled back to the campsite! We bemused a lot of people, walking through the campground in our helmets, spray skirts, and carrying the boats.

It was an odd April weekend - got to nearly 90 degrees - but we were cool in the trees. Loved sitting by the river, listening to the rapids below. The cooling fan worked well.

Importantly, we learned a few things:

- The five gallon water supply is enough for about a day and a half when cooking and washing up. Would like more, but don't want to give up the room for a bigger tank.
- We were able to keep the 12 volt frig running, shutting it off at night to sleep, as much as needed. Along with the LED lights, we had no problems with battery life when boondocking for a weekend. (Still didn't have the charge wire in the van.)
- We really prefer eating outside of the trailer, but there is decent space to cook inside with our L-shaped galley.

- The Paha Que screenroom (picture above from their website) is, well, let's just say I have mixed feelings. It's big inside, but heavy and far from inexpensive. (It will get its own blog post in due course, when I set the thing up again.)
- It's so easy to tow this with the van.
- Our bed modifications worked well. More on those later too.

No new pictures, sadly enough, but it looked the same as in our post below.

Tom