Smokey’s

We try to find places to eat where the locals dine. One evening on the beach we met a man who turned out to be the manager of the Westin Hotel in Chicago. He recommended that we try Smokey's Southern Barbeque. He said it was small but good.

He was right.

Indiana Dunes State Park

We left Ohio and headed west to Indiana. We stayed at Indiana Dunes State Park, an unexpected surprise. Located on the shore of Lake Michigan just east of the steel mills in Gary, Indiana, it is a pristine shoreline with large sand dunes. It looks much more like an ocean beach than a lakeside.

Our site backed up right to the dunes.

Bix makes a new friend on the beach

Adjacent to the state park is the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. Between the state park and the NPS land, there’s about 10 miles of remarkably pristine beach, lakeshore and sand dunes.