Temporarily Summer--TRIP 3 (2013)

There couldn’t be a much more glorious fall day. By noon, the temperature hovered in the high 70’s with a bright sun and blue skies to warm the landscape. We had shed our jackets by 9:30 a.m. Fleecy high clouds dotted the sky overhead, forming intricate lacy patterns.

“Five more degrees, and I’d be miserable,” remarked Andy. “We are really going to feel it on Friday when the high is a predicted 45 degrees.”

Colored leaves accent the terrain in the oak savanna.

The Bailly Homestead offers shelter today, just as it did
for the trapper Joseph Bailly and his family in 1822.

At Mnoké Prairie trailhead I read that Highland High School students had helped to restore the prairie by planting native grasses after routine National Park Service burns. We circled the prairie for .9 mile, rolling up sleeves as temperatures warmed dramatically. The steel mills rumbled in the distance like constant thunder. Every so often a thud reverberated, reminding us that the trains picked up loaded box cars for distribution across worlds. Not everyone could walk Mnoké Prairie like we did. Some people had to go to work on Wednesdays. A few colorful butterflies fluttered near us as the dried prairie flowers and buffalo grasses swayed in the breeze. Everyone should have retirement like this!

A woman in white linen sat cross-legged under a tree at the old Bailly Farm. It would have made an excellent picture—the kind artists want to paint—with yellowed leaves in the background. We didn’t disturb her meditation. “She could be an interpretive guide,” said Andy. Two coach buses of fourth graders from West Lafayette, Indiana, had settled in the parking lot near the main Visitor Center. Someone else pulled on leggings in an open doorway of the Bailly shed, and clothes strewn haphazardly on the first floor of the two-story Bailly cabin suggested someone had taken up residence. “There are coolers upstairs,” said Andy, “so someone is staying here.” Joseph Bailly was the French trapper who settled here in 1822.  He was an independent trader in the extensive fur-trading network that spread from Montreal to Louisiana and ultimately to Europe. One of the earliest settlers in northern Indiana, Bailly set up his fur trading post at the crossroads of several important trails, including the Tolleston Beach and northern branch of the Sauk Trail. He provided a meeting place for Native Americans and Euro-Americans. Except for White Pigeon, Michigan, Bailly's trading post was the only stopping place for travelers and missionaries between Chicago and Detroit.

A beautiful trail winds through oak savanna and prairie.

We continued walking the .3-mile one-way path to the family cemetery. There, deep in the woods on what was probably an old dune, was an elaborate concrete and stone enclosure. “Can you believe that they did this in the early 1800’s?” marveled Andy. A ten-foot high wall of carefully cut stone blocks was topped with decorative poured concrete pillars, a couple hundred of them to surround the entire enclosure. And in the center on the top stood a carved wooden cross. Marked gravestones set in the outside wall read:

The Bailly Family cemetery deep in the woods
surprises visitors with its size and artistic construction.

Francis Howe, 1811-1850, and Rose Bailly, Michigan Territory, 1813-1891.

Joseph Bailly, Quebec, 1774-1835 and Marie Lefevre 1834-1866.

Their quiet resting place, obviously partly restored from the looks of the cleaned grout and intermittent white blocks, was only disturbed by the distant train whistle from the steel mills. “I doubt many people come in here,” remarked Andy, “but I’m glad we did. It’s amazing and impressive.”

Another project? For a moment I imagined a peaceful resting place right in my own backyard!  But only for a moment!

At Chellberg Farm the fourth graders had taken over, listening to talks about sugar maple syrup making, playing Frisbee and having lunch. A photographer posed a one-year old near the doorway in piles of fallen leaves. The concerned mother adjusted the toddler’s bangs as a yellow leaf fluttered down on her head. It probably would have been cuter left in place in the little girl’s red hair. Funny what we worry about.  Funny how life goes on!  Andes Chellberg, a Swedish immigrant, came to the U.S. in 1864 and purchased 80 acres of farmland to settle here. In the 1850's and 1860's many Swedish immigrants left Chicago to work in the local sawmills of northern Indiana. The Augsburg Lutheran Church, established in 1858, was the heart of their social world.

We kept walking, four miles before we were back to Little Red.

The Ly-co-ki-we Trail
weaves through oak woods.

The Ly-co-ki-we Trail, with loops ranging from a mile to 6.4 miles, is marked for hiking, horseback riding and cross-country skiing.

“We’re going to do a 2.2-mile stretch, and then I’ll give you lunch,” promised Andy, as we disembarked near Furnessville Road at the Calumet Dunes Interpretive Center. Closed for the season, the Center was buried in dry, brown oak leaves. We set out on our second big walk of the day. “Only two miles or so before lunch,” reminded Andy.

“So is that a carrot?” I asked, joking. “I’m the mule?”

“NO!” He laughed. “Whatever could you mean?”
“Dangle the carrot so I’ll walk?” I joked.

“No, I’ll give you an apple for lunch. Maybe even half a cookie too.”

With leaves already down the trails
crunch with every step.

The trail looped through oak savanna.  Most of the leaves were down, forming a brown, crunchy cushion under foot. Only the trees in the protected dips had kept their coats of brown. “This should be easy,” said Andy, after we were 25 feet in.

It wasn’t.

Many voracious moles had burrowed in and out under the trail, loosening the soil and creating a lumpy footing. In addition, the sandy soil was uneven and soft. The carpet of brown shifted and sank with each step. Part of the loop was horse trail, which produced more indentations and unevenness.
“The last stop explained that there were three levels of dunes,” I told Andy. “We are crossing sand dunes.” Up and down the slopes we trudged, struggling to keep our footing in the uneven, loose sandy soil, that was capped everywhere by rustling, slippery oak leaves. “It’s the innermost layer of dunes from ages ago,” I said. “That’s why it is grey. It’s mixed with organic matter, but it is still sand.”

“The edges are more solid,” Andy noticed. But it wasn’t always easy to walk on the edges.

A blue jay called from high in one tree. He swooped down and spooked a lone robin. “Ranger Julie wanted to know if we had seen any red-headed woodpeckers on the Miller Woods Trail,” I told Andy.

He laughed.

“I just told her all was quiet.” A butterfly, probably a swallowtail, fluttered past us in silence. “I didn’t bother to explain that we had seen way more red-headed woodpeckers than we cared to, since they cost us many thousands in holes in the house.”

Even though most leaves are already down,
blue sky sets off the oak forest.

A train whistle blew in the distance. Whoooo-whoo. I had grown so accustomed to the rumble of the steel mills, the constant thunder of the trains pulling loads of steel ingots and bars over the rails, and the thuds of box cars colliding, that I had forgotten how close we were to industry in the midst of the wilderness. The repeated whistle and the clang of the freight cars chugging through an intersection in the near distance reminded us.

We grabbed our apples back at the car. Calumet Dunes Center was closed for the season.  I think just the name dunes should have warned us that our little 2.2-mile hike was no easy trail.

As we leaned against the railing of the closed interpretive center, leaves covered our feet and crunched with each shift of position. What remained of the fall foliage was still precariously attached to the more protected trees. Those leaves danced in the air currents above us. As the breeze shifted, orphaned brown oak leaves detached and dropped. Some plummeted end over end at sharp angles; others wavered back and forth like tiny ships caught on invisible waves; still others spun gently in circles like tiny brown tea cups. We munched our apples and watched the leaves pirouette in a delicate autumn ballet.

At Beverly Shores people walked the beach, spread picnic lunches and even changed for dips in Lake Michigan. It actually was that warm, above 82 degrees in the later afternoon. “But there’s no such thing as global warming,” I said to Andy.

Andy feigns exhaustion after climbing the giant,
moving Mount Baldy sand dune on Lake Michigan.

“Yeah, right!” he answered.

Mount Baldy is moving, the tallest moving sand dune along the national lakeshore. Ranger Julie told us yesterday that the back side had been closed and cordoned off, hopefully to slow down the deliberate march inland. We found it totally blocked off from the parking lot to protect the fragile grasses on the back side. Following the steep leaf-strewn trail, we climbed to the top for an amazing view of blue on blue. Lake Michigan sparkled against a blue sky. Mount Baldy shimmered in the afternoon heat as sun reflected off the white sand. Following the rope fence, we made our way across the dunes and down to the beach. Lake Michigan, probably 50 degrees cool, lapped gently against the shoreline, so different from the angry grey of yesterday. I rolled my shirt sleeve up and dabbled my fingers in the cool, refreshing water. The beach was immaculate.

Nature and heavy industry coexist side by side along the
Lake Michigan shoreline in northern Indiana.

"We’ve done at least six miles so far today,” I said to Andy, as we headed back towards Riverwalk, the stretch we had covered at sundown yesterday.

“At least,” he agreed, “and much of it was very difficult in the sand.”

For the second time we
walk the groin, admiring the
yachts along a no-wake zone.

           But Riverwalk, the Portage Lakefront and Riverwalk, was an easy mile along the inlet with a loop back inland across the dunes.  We even strolled out to the light house and back along the groin. Seven or eight yachts motored slowly past in the no-wake zone. Dune grasses waved gently as the breeze picked up, and a fisherman in rubber leggings wheeled a small kayak to the water’s edge. The scene was one of ultimate natural beauty, next door to a steel mill. As recently as the 1980’s, the park had burned with acid, the run-off and cast-out pits of a steel mill, probably one that went bankrupt. Thank goodness for environmentally conscious people who have the foresight to restore our world.

At 4:30 p.m. we headed north on Interstate #94 to Shady Creek Winery east of Michigan City, Indiana.

“We get our grapes from Michigan,” admitted Jerry, as he poured us samples. The wines were delicious, and a few minutes of chatting uncovered some amazing coincidences. Jerry and I had not only both graduated from Prospect High School, but we had both attended Lincoln Junior High. Talk about small world!  “My brother started this business three years ago,” said Jerry. “I joined him two years ago, and I love it!”

“It’s almost as good as retirement!” I added.