High of 71 degrees!
This day began in Jackson Park. This park was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted (who also designed New York's Central Park). This park was also the site of the 1893 World Exposition. The first two photos are from this grand (though in need of some care) park. The first is in the Japanese garden, a beautiful spot to watch the sunrise. The second are the first flowers in bloom along my Trek. If anyone knows the name of this flower, please post a comment. It's been driving me crazy! OKAY: My mom came through with the flower ID. She writes: "The flower is called the Snowdrop ( Galanthus) a native of Turkey and Eastern Europe. It is one of the first harbingers of spring and is in the amaryllis family. Mom" Thanks, Mom!
The
Lakefront Trail kind of dies on the southside, so then I walked along major roads until I came upon the next park or other lake access. I went through Rainbow Park (which was deserted except for me), and then skirted the former site of the U.S. Steel South Works Plant. The plant operated from the mid 1800s to the 1990s before shutting down completely. The plant has since been scrubbed from the land (except for a lone power plant). It is now a fenced off scrubby plot of hundreds of acres. There is a trash-heaped berm of dirt blocking the street view of the site and I would have had to climb the fence to get a photo. This was not the sort of neighborhood to go shooting photos anyway, so I didn't do more than pick my way through the rubble of a neighborhood left behind when the mill and all the jobs left. The grand church pictured here stands in the middle of this devastated place.
I cut a few blocks inland to try to find some breakfast, and came across a delightful Mexican bakery on Commercial Avenue called Marzeya.
The lobby area of the bakery is filled with glass cases stuffed with delightful pasteries (see photo). You merely pick up an aluminum tray and a pair of
tongs and help yourself from the cases. Everything is made on site and fifty pound sacks of flour are stacked behind the counter.
From this point until I stopped for the night, I'd be passing through Calumet Park, then crossing into Indiana, then walking through a lot of industry only broken up by Whiting, IN.
The day warmed up (as they said it would) and it was rather hot when I passed through the BP refinery (formerly Standard Oil, then Amoco), one of the largest in the world. It isn't the most pedestrian-friendly walk (as you might imagine--actually it's probably even worse than you can imagine). I hustled through there. BP security tailed me at one point, but then
lost interest. I then crossed over the drawbridge on the Indiana Harbor Canal and into the area between East Chicago and Gary.
As I got closer and closer to my hotel (the Ameristar which is situated on Lake Michigan), I realized that I could not approach it on foot. This was after crossing two on/off ramps to the layers of highway. You had to get ON, then OFF the highway in order to get to the hotel that was less than a half mile away. I started to backtrack to a bar I had passed to call a cab to take me there, when a man just getting off his shift at the mill pulled over and gave me a lift in his yellow Jeep. The day was so lovely that he had peeled back the soft top of the Jeep and it was great to feel the air rushing through the vehicle. The gentleman's name was Dwayne and he'd just returned from a trip to Hawaii. So, for that short ride through industrial horrorscape, we talked about the beaches of the islands so far removed from where we were.
I'm still thankful for Dwayne and his yellow Jeep with the top rolled back.
I had read the article online that the Michigan City paper did on the trek, but I had no idea it was on the front page until Janet Smith, owner of the Feallock House B&B, sent me a copy of the paper!
High of 55 degrees.
This was the longest day of the trek so far: 22 miles!
High of 61 degrees.
High of 61 degrees.
I trekked 72 miles over five days covering the lake shore (and passing through or skirting some massive industrial complexes along the way).
Janet Smith, owner of the Feallock House Bed & Breakfast in the historic section of Michigan City not only makes a fabulous upside down pineapple french toast, she also invited community leaders to meet me over breakfast. In the group shot are Pat and Roger Potratz (he's the President of the Main Street Association), then Naomi and Neil Kienitz (he's a wonderful local artist and she works as a medical
transcriptionist), then Janet Smith is on the right (and again in
the reason it is so pristine is that Mary (in photo with black bag) always takes a trash bag along with her when she walks the stretch of beach by her home there. She loves the lake, too, and we talked about the Lake Trek a bit. She asked me if I ever got lonely on the trek and I said, "No, I have the lake." She smiled and nodded.
the lake at Dune Acres where I met Harold (in photo to the right). He retired from working at Midland Steel after 35 years. He worked in the coal house slitting steel. Here they would take large rolls of steel and slit it down to smaller rolls for companies like Whirlpool or the car companies. He's now retired, but works part time in the Dune Acres community as a grounds and maintenance guy. He was checking out the flooding (yes, that's the playground underwater behind him).
set in Chicago, so it was good reading them while I was passing through that region. By the time I got to Gary, I had finished the book and it was extra weight on my back. Thankfully, I came across a 'Books for Charity' drop box along US12 (of all places) and could donate this book so it had a life after me. I hope Mr. Dybek approves.
This wide stretch of beach is bookended by steel mills. It is odd to look out at the miles of lake stretching from the shore, then to glance left or right to see the billowing smoke from the mills.
High of 71 degrees!
Lakefront Trail kind of dies on the southside, so then I walked along major roads until I came upon the next park or other lake access. I went through Rainbow Park (which was deserted except for me), and then skirted the former site of the U.S. Steel South Works Plant. The plant operated from the mid 1800s to the 1990s before shutting down completely. The plant has since been scrubbed from the land (except for a lone power plant). It is now a fenced off scrubby plot of hundreds of acres. There is a trash-heaped berm of dirt blocking the street view of the site and I would have had to climb the fence to get a photo. This was not the sort of neighborhood to go shooting photos anyway, so I didn't do more than pick my way through the rubble of a neighborhood left behind when the mill and all the jobs left. The grand church pictured here stands in the middle of this devastated place.
The lobby area of the bakery is filled with glass cases stuffed with delightful pasteries (see photo). You merely pick up an aluminum tray and a pair of
tongs and help yourself from the cases. Everything is made on site and fifty pound sacks of flour are stacked behind the counter.
lost interest. I then crossed over the drawbridge on the Indiana Harbor Canal and into the area between East Chicago and Gary.
