July 2nd, Drive to Devil's Lake

Sunday, July 2, 2006
Day 7
Drive from Indiana Dunes to Devil’s Lake State Park

This morning I walked approximately 3.25 miles on trails 10 and 2 at the Dunes. It was a nice walk but a little long for what I wanted to do today. My sunburn was bothering me a bit. I saw one deer on my walk and it didn’t really notice me, which was nice. But I couldn’t stay and admire it too long because I was being eaten alive by the mosquitoes in the marsh.

After a nice breakfast of bacon, eggs, and pancakes, we were off by about 10 am. We dumped the waste tanks and left the dunes. It took us about 5 hours to travel the 250 miles to Devil’s Lake State Park. We discovered that in Illinois our E-Z Pass is accepted at the I-Pass terminals that they use. That saved us time and money! Illinois is implementing an Open Highway Toll System, which can read the device at highway speeds. It was very nice, although not fully completed in all locations yet.

Upon arriving here at Devil’s Lake, we found the campground confusing with a lot of one-way streets, but after investigating it further we are beginning to understand it. Tomorrow we are going to meet up with Bill and Carla, old friends from my LuHi days. Thankfully he called me around 2 pm because I did not have his number! We also want to get up early to hike the trail that goes past Balanced Rock and also the Devil’s Doorway. There is also a 9:30 am program at the nature center about the glaciation of Devil’s Lake. I’d like to go to that too, but we’ll see if there is time.