{"id":11356,"date":"2015-05-05T07:16:17","date_gmt":"2015-05-05T13:16:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/?p=11356"},"modified":"2015-05-05T07:16:17","modified_gmt":"2015-05-05T13:16:17","slug":"may-may-may-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/uncategorized\/may-may-may-2\/","title":{"rendered":"may may may!"},"content":{"rendered":"

it’s monday morning, who know when i’ll actually manage to get this posted because yesterday, returning from camping, i felt completely overwhelmed by the enormous volume of stuff i need to do, inside and outside the house.\u00a0 everything.<\/p>\n

but camping was fun, and i have many nice photos.<\/p>\n

here’s a couple of photos that erica took from our learning-to-start-a-fire seminar.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

as you can see, kim is doing a great job.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

here we are on friday afternoon.\u00a0 by the time we got to the dunes, the place wasn’t full, but as the day went on, it sold out.\u00a0 such a popular place!\u00a0 and it looked like winter!\u00a0 barely any buds on the trees anywhere in the park.\u00a0 kim is on the right with her tiny tent, erica in the middle with her slightly larger tent, and my MONSTER TENT is over on the right.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

they had to help me with the final steps of tent-putting-up, but i don’t think i did it completely right.\u00a0 kim’s tent is actually SMALLER than it looks in the picture!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

right away, we started building a fire -that is, kim and erica started, and i took pictures.\u00a0 kim got it lit right away with her flint!\u00a0 yaaaay, kim!\u00a0 this is the first time they’ve had a fire when camping.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

this is our little area; dang, i wish i’d taken a picture of the picnic table!\u00a0 because when we all got our bags and things out, the table was completely covered, and it reminded me of how the inside of our pop up always looks.\u00a0 except here, we had to put all the food back in the car at night cause of the hungry raccoons that come out.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

we decided to take a shortish hike, and headed up the big dune.\u00a0 it was quite a hike.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

at the top, we could see a sliver of lake michigan.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

the descent – the sand was pretty deep, and my shoes quickly got full of sand.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

so pretty!\u00a0 but it looked like winter.\u00a0 it was cool, but not bad.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

i started kind of running down the dune, which was fun, and there are kim and erica.\u00a0 it was WAAAAY steeper than it looks here.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

we walked along the beach towards a structure we saw in the distance.\u00a0 i had decided to be crazy and not bring a map, completely against my nature, so we didn’t know what the structure might be.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

here it is – the concession stand!\u00a0 it looks really old, doesn’t it?\u00a0 it also looked like it was under renovation, but maybe it’s just closed for the season.\u00a0 there weren’t many people around.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

there’s chicago!\u00a0 i wanted to know how far it would be to swim from the park to chicago, but i just tried plotting it on “map my run,” and it wouldn’t give me the distance over water, only over land.\u00a0 the distance on land is 43 miles, so it must be shorter if you swam straight across.\u00a0 but could you do it?\u00a0 has anybody ever done it?\u00a0 is it possible?<\/p>\n

ok, i spent at least five minutes checking it on google, and i don’t think anybody has tried it.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

as we hiked back up the dune, we saw this thing in the distance that looked like some kind of bridge.\u00a0 but erica kept saying that it was a mirage, and when we’d hiked up a little higher, we realized she was right.\u00a0 some women were hiking down at the same time, and when they got to that spot they said “what IS that?” so we told them, because we were now experts.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

erica in her little tent when we got back.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

AND NOW IT’S TUESDAY MORNING HERE IN SPFLD,<\/strong><\/p>\n

and yesterday was a blur of activity.\u00a0 i should have been resting up a little from the giant hike we took on saturday!<\/p>\n

here’s kim and me, before we started out.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

this is a shot from the bath house; the place was mostly filled with RVs.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

we walked and walked, on pretty flat land, with all the trees with no leaves.\u00a0 finally, though, we got to a dune and climbed up it.\u00a0 erica never wanted her picture taken, so i took this of kim, and only realized later that erica was bending over.\u00a0 it looks like she only has half a body!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

more sand, sand sand.\u00a0 it was much warmer on saturday, and when we got to the beach we stopped for a while and skipped stones.\u00a0 well, i tried – i actually managed to skip a couple of them after many PLUNKS of the stones just going straight down into the water.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

we had to turn left to continue on the path, but we could see a pink structure off in the distance, in the opposite direction.\u00a0 i said that maybe it was a nice cafe serving wine and beer and snacks, so we decided to walk towards it.<\/p>\n

i wish i’d taken a picture – we got almost there, but when we got close enough to realize it wasn’t a restaurant, we turned back.\u00a0 later, we found out that there were two house, and they were both “houses of the future” from the 1933 world’s fair in chicago!\u00a0 they’d been moved there, and people rented them.\u00a0 you can take a tour once a year, but i couldn’t find a date for this year.\u00a0 there are actually five different houses, and the pink on was the florida house.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

a very tiny butterfly.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

we walked and walked and walked, and were gone about four hours.\u00a0 we reached the concession stand, and there were many people on the beach this time.\u00a0 i saw a woman in very high heels, taking them off to walk on the sand.\u00a0 why did she decide to wear heels to the beach?<\/p>\n

as we trudged up this very very steep dune, a couple was walking down, with the cutest little puppy ever.\u00a0 it was white and darling, and bouncing all around.\u00a0 they said it was his first outing!\u00a0 i wish i’d taken a picture right there.\u00a0 sooo cute and happy!\u00a0 hopefully they carried him back up the hill.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

this is a close as i could make the shot.\u00a0 soooo cute!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

i’d studied the map, and it said we had to take the “beach trail” which would lead us right back to the camp.\u00a0 but after we got to the top, we saw the wooden path down below where we could have simply walked a short way.\u00a0 but we wouldn’t have seen the puppy, so it was worth it.<\/p>\n

the hike down was way way steeper than i’d ever be comfortable attempting, but because the sand was so deep it was fun to sink down it as we made our way down.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

did i mention that there were lots and lots of dogs at the camp?\u00a0 dogs and kids.\u00a0 this great dane was the biggest one i saw.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

this camper was called a road warrior i think, and it had a porch all around it!\u00a0 i couldn’t take a picture of the porch on the side because a guy was standing on it.\u00a0 why a porch?\u00a0 i can’t imagine why you’d want one.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

we got back to camp and decided to drive to a little town 5 miles south, called chester.\u00a0 it was supposed to be full of artisans and things like that.<\/p>\n

when we got there, it wasn’t so artistic, but we did find a little flower\/gift shop full of some cool things, like this pillow, which is by the same person who made the wonderful cutting board that erica gave me.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

but it was kind of ridiculously expensive, as we most of the stuff there, so instead, we walked down the block to a cute restaurant in an old victorian house.\u00a0 it had a big wraparound deck, and we sat outside and drank and had some delicious appetizers.\u00a0 it was fun to have a little break from camping.\u00a0 it was prom night, so a few overdressed teens went into the restaurant – it was a perfect night for sitting outside, but i guess that since they were so fancy, they felt that eating inside was more appropriate.<\/p>\n

here’s the funny thing – there were leaves on the trees in chester, and lots of flowers blooming everywhere, just five miles from the park!\u00a0 i must have been because the park was right next to lake michigan.<\/p>\n

we stopped to buy more firewood, and went back to camp and made another nice fire.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

i roasted many marshmallows, which were delicious.<\/p>\n

sunday morning, erica and kim wanted to get up and go, because they had lots to do before work on monday.\u00a0 so we quickly packed up and headed out by nine a.m.!\u00a0 very early, but it was good in terms of traffic on the highways skirting chicago.<\/p>\n

i got home and started unloading the van and doing stuff, and at some point realized that i was COMPLETELY EXHAUSTED.<\/p>\n

camping is a lot of work.<\/p>\n

fun, but a lot of work.<\/p>\n

on thursday, mom and i are are going up to chicago to see aunt sandy and a show, and we’re taking the train and staying in a hotel, so it’ll be an entirely different kind of trip.\u00a0 i’m excited about the train, but i have to focus on not taking much with me, since whatever i take i’ll have to drag all around.\u00a0 this will be a challenge, since i always like to have everything.<\/p>\n

and in the meantime, there’s an infinite amount of yard work to do, so i must continue that right now.<\/p>\n

i hope your tuesday is good.<\/p>\n

ok then,<\/p>\n

mrs. springtime hughes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

it’s monday morning, who know when i’ll actually manage to get this posted because yesterday, returning from camping, i felt completely overwhelmed by the enormous volume of stuff i need to do, inside and outside the house.\u00a0 everything. but camping was fun, and i have many nice photos. here’s a couple of photos that erica […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[107],"class_list":["post-11356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-indiana-dunes"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6JLYy-2Xa","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11356"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11356\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}