April 26, 2013
Getting desperate for another adventure, we took a quick
weekend trip down to Notre Dame Country. On the way we stopped by “The Parlour”
in Jackson for some ice cream – this place is great – hence our reason for
stopping by whenever we head through that area. This time we got the Turtle
Sundae – yummy, but I personally would have liked more caramel! Our weekend accommodations
were at a place called “Varsity Clubs of America – South Bend”. The place was
decked out in Notre Dame related décor.
April 27, 2013
After a quick breakfast at the hotel, we headed over to the
Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. It was about an hour drive from the South
Bend area. The Indiana Dunes encompass about 15 miles of the southern shore of
Lake Michigan. We visited the Dunes back in 2010 and visited a lot of the main
attractions, this time we did some hiking and visited some of the places that
we enjoyed the most on our last visit.
The Cowles Bog Trail was not too strenuous, with the major
climbs being right near the lake. There is parking across the road from the
site. There is also a trail in the parking lot area. We did that trail too – it
was not nearly as good as the Cowles Bog Trail.
We hiked just over six miles on the two trails. The Cowles Bog Trail is
advertised as being 4.6 miles of hiking trails.
Our next stop was to visit the 1933 Century of Progress
Homes near at the Lake View Beach area. The beach is nice in this area, also.
In the summer, it would probably be highly unlikely to find parking at that
beach. The houses were displayed at the 1933 World’s Fair in Chicago. The
designs are all drastically different. The houses were moved from the fair to
the Beverly Shores area by a real estate developer in hopes that the high
profile houses would entice buyers to his resort community. Four of the five
houses were brought by barge and the other was dismantled and reassembled. The
houses currently are in all sorts of conditions, with renovations currently
taking place. The houses are all listed on the National Register of Historic
Places.
The last visit for the day at the dunes was Mount Baldy.
Mount Baldy had some noticeable changes since our last visit. The NPS says that the dunes move about four
feet each year due to the wind. Beach erosion is taking more sand away from the
area than the lake waves are bringing in. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began
“feeding” (trucking in sand) the beach in 1974 in efforts to correct the effect
of the breakwall being built for the Michigan City Harbor. There is a short hike
to the summit of the dune. Also, there is a short trail that leads to the
beach.
Back to South Bend we went – time to catch up with some
family! We had a tour of the Notre Dame campus - so pretty - lots of architecture. After the tour we headed to Hollihan’s for
dinner – it was pretty good. We started
with the Chipotle Chicken Nachos – large portion, but 3 of us devoured it. We all had sandwiches, which were very tasty.
The evening was capped off by a visit to a bar called
Fiddler’s Hearth in downtown South Bend. The bar was very interesting – it
represents seven Celtic nations with food, drink, music, dance, and culture.
The bar has live music every night. There is a huge beer list and if you order
fish and chips it will come wrapped in newspaper – that has to mean that it is
good – right? Next visit we are for sure going to have a bite to eat!
April 28, 2013
Upon waking up to a rainy day, we packed up early and headed
home…where of course it was still raining.
