Welcome back to day seven, again! When we did this trip, we held our fingers crossed hoping it would be open to the public. I saw pictures had been posted on social media recently from this location so my hopes were up. We drove nearly four hours to get there, but it went very smoothly.
When we arrived I noticed that there was a trail with some wooden stairs in one direction, and a paved path that most people were taking going in another direction. I saw people with beach supplies taking both routes, which lead me to believe they both reach our destination at some point. We decided to leave the stairs for the way back and focus on the more direct path first.
Along either side of the path, there were these enormous sand dunes. Maybe compared to deserts they were small fries, but I've never seen anything like it before. There were pockets of water I could hear chirps, though I wasn't sure if they were from birds or amphibians.
We walked about five minutes before we arrived at the welcome center. There were snack bars and restrooms, and then we saw it. Michigan Lake looked like an ocean! You couldn't see the far edge of the lake. The waves were powerful and large. Lifeguards stood watching, making sure people stayed out of the water, due to the choppy and strong waves that day. I was surprised to see so many people on the beach. It was actually hard to walk along the beach without feeling like I was crossing somebody's personal space.
As we walked along the beach, we noticed two silhouettes in the distance, and when I looked at a map, I realized that we could see both Chicago and Milwaukee from our current location. You could see the faint outlines of the cityscapes which I found to be very cool. We continued to follow the beach until we saw a small opening heading into the dunes, marked as a trail entrance. Bingo! This was the link to the wooden stairs we had seen earlier.
Walking and climbing through the sand with sneakers on was a challenge, and I felt like I had weights tied to my ankles. This trek back to the car was going to be a workout for sure. It was nicely shaded and mixed a classic trail with trees with sandy sediment. We eventually found the beginning of the stair path and it ended up being much longer than we expected it to be. Another possibility was that it felt longer because it was all stairs!
Once we got to the top though, the view was fantastic! We really felt accomplished as we traversed it. Part of the stairs were mostly crossing the dunes, but then part of them entered a wooded area. This reminded me of when my parents took me to Costa Rica when I was younger, and we did a canopy walk. Thankfully these weren't as high up as the ones back then, but it was still magical.
This reminded us constantly that we were both out of shape, forcing us to take multiple breaks. We never gave up though, and when we finally saw the end of the stairs and the start of the parking lot, we got really excited. I felt so proud of myself for never thinking once that I couldn't finish it. I kept my mentality positive and just goal-oriented. One more step and we will get there. I really enjoyed the experience and I totally recommend the Indiana Dunes National Park to everyone. It has lovely trails for those that just want to walk, and a beautiful beach for those that rather lay in the sun.
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