We spent two nights holed up in a hotel in Louisville to avoid tornados. One hit near our destination of Land Between Lakes in western Kentucky. And there were some about 100 miles south of us.
There was more predictions for storms the next week so we set out for a new destination of Great River Bluffs in Minnesota.
Our travels put us through Indiana and some damn crazy crosswinds. The van has a crosswind safety feature and I have only had it automatically go off once. Well it went off at least 20 times. At one point we passed miles and miles of windmills so I guess the winds are a common thing.
Then we encountered a fire on the highway and it was shutdown with a crazy rural detour route.
We did NOT like Indiana even if the Jackson 5 were from there.
We made it to Indiana Dunes National Park…kinda. First we went to the education center. Then to the visitors center where they were hosting a bird watching weekend. Neither of these places had dunes?!
The birding event had a marketplace tent where I found some cool magnets.
Finally, the dunes!
They reminded me of Jockeys Ridge in NC on a smaller scale with a giant blue body of water. And there were rocks!! I was not able to find and Petrosky stones(fossils of coral) but it was still fun collecting.
It was getting dark and we were tired and hungry from our long journey and still had 6 hours to the bluffs.
Because it was a Saturday and a bird fest was going on, all the campsites were full. I resorted to Hipcamp and found a site for $35. Unfortunately it was in the wrong direction.
To Michigan we drove to the Blooming Bus hipcamp.
It was adorable and had lots of pretty lights, silk umbrellas hanging as decorations, alpacas, purple lupins blooming, glamping tents and a basketball hoop set up in a farm tractor to return the balls.
