Nice Beaches at Indiana Dunes National Park
State #25 was Indiana! We arrived at Sand Creek Campground on 6/21/2022 to visit Indiana Dunes National Park. Did you know there was a national park with great beaches? We didn’t. Indiana Dunes National Park is a beautiful and unique national park stretching 15 miles along the shore of Lake Michigan. The park has miles of hiking trails and sandy beaches! While visiting the park, we decided to 1) Hike Cowles Bog Trail, 2) Attend a Ranger talk at the Chellberg Farmhouse, and 3) Relax and enjoy the sunshine at West Beach.
We knew we wanted to hike, but the sun was beating bright, so we decided to hike the first part of Cowles Bog Trail. This part of the trail was mostly shaded but still challenging as some of the trail was sand. We hiked all the way until we could see Lake Michigan with east Chicago and downtown Chicago in the background. This trail is typically a loop, but we turned around and headed back at this point. We decided to skip the part of the trail that included climbing up the sand dunes. After our hike, we headed to the Ranger-talk at the Chellberg Farmhouse. We learned that the brick farmhouse was built in 1885. The parlor room and kitchen even have the original full-size wood-burning heating stoves that you also serve as a cooktop and oven. The new kitchen was added around 1901, and the wood-burning stove actually works. Our Park Ranger mentioned that weekend volunteers sometimes bake cookies in it.
There is no better way to relax than by spending time at the beach, so the following day we packed up our beach stuff and headed to West Beach. According to the park newsletter, this is a very popular beach spot for swimming and sunbathing, with beautiful views of Lake Michigan. The beach was great and looked like a beach in Southern California except you don’t have to deal with the salt water and waves. There was even a snack stand with delicious Hawaiian ice that cooled us off in the heat. I was surprised there was a national park with such nice beaches. It is definitely worth the visit!