The next stop(s) after Adventureland...

Mount Baldy is really a bunch of sand, ok?

Indiana Dunes State Park campground

OOOOOkayyyyyyy.  It was the 8th of September, we'd made it through the harrowing ordeal known as rush hour traffic in Chicago in a motorhome, and were in Indiana now.  Our campground was Indiana Dunes State Park located on the southeast corner of Lake Michigan, near the town of Chesterton, Indiana.  We stayed there just one night as that was all that was available since it was still the middle of the camping season for a lot of people, particularly the ones who already had reservations to stay there.  ...And since we didn't (we thought that since it was after Labor Day, fewer people would have the camping bug biting them still.  Duh!), we had to face the consequences.  Luckily, there was a federal park just down the road that we went to, but memory escapes me now as to what it was.  There were very few campers there, I remember that much, and we felt it was close enough to Chicago that we'd be able to drive there easily enough.  The campers camped across the street from us were from Germany and told us that they were gonna take the commuter train into Chicago the same day that we were gonna drive into Chicago to the art museum.  At the end of the day after going to the museum and seeing the paintings that we wanted to see and a few other things as well, and after paying OUTRAGEOUS parking rates to park next to the museum, and regretting the drive to and fro because of all the traffic, our German friends walked into their campsite with smiles on their faces.  They may have had those smiles because they were naturally happy people, or had a good time in Chicago seeing sites that they'd been looking forward to seeing for some time.  But I suspect it was because they had the foresight and wisdom to take the train.  If we do this again, we'll definitely follow their example!  However, there was a bright spot in our ordeal on the way back from Chicago in that we saw a billboard promoting the Valparaiso Popcorn Festival.  If you're familiar with popcorn, you'll remember Orville Redenbacher appearing in "popping corn" commercials.  He and his business partner, Charlie Bowman, started developing the perfect popcorn near Valparaiso in the 1950's and introduced Orville Redenbacher's Gourmet Popping Corn in 1970.  With the his popping corn becoming very popular in the mid 70's, the festival started in 1979 as a salute to Orville (and popcorn, of course), and the rest is history.  The festival features various activities, among them a parade, 5k run/walk, balloon show, and musical entertainment.  We decided to see the parade and peruse around after that.  The parade had as grand marshalls Marci & Courtney Crozier who were "The Biggest Loser" contestants on the 11th season. 

Parade doggies.  Again!

Oh Boy!  The Parade's starting!

Grand Marshalls Marci
and Courtney Cozier.  Couldn't
get them to turn around!

Balloon doggies (formerly known
as Parade doggies) next to Katie
impatiently awaiting the
night glow!

After the parade was over with, we just perused the various venders, and found out about the balloon night glow that was gonna happen that night.  Having missed the one at Indianola, Iowa earlier at the the National Balloon Classic that was scheduled while we were working at Adventureland, we were excited to know of the possibility to see a night glow still the same.  As you may know or have learned from the above link, a balloon night glow can be a rather dramatic sight when the sky is dark.  Although it took more than a couple of hours, the final word was given to the balloon crews to light their burners when they had their balloons full of hot air.

So... something good did come from going to Chicago after all.  We got to see this festival with another parade, and a balloon night glow to boot!  Life is pretty good, huh?

 Night glow at the 2012 Valparaiso
Popcorn Festival.