From Badlands and Indiana Dunes
We visited Badlands National Park a few days ago- back into the heat for sure. It was around 100 degrees while were there, much hotter in the camper! This late in the season, the prairie grasses were mainly tones of brown and then the hills were shades of white, yellow, pink and gray. We walked nearly all of the trails and enjoyed the openness of the park campground to take in the views. We saw bunnies, a rattle snake, bighorn sheep, lots of frogs and some colorful birds. I love all that free space where you can see forever.
From Badlands and Indiana Dunes
From the Badlands, we did a long day eastward stopping by the SPAM museum since we were going right by it. A can of SPAM is cracked open every 3 seconds and in Hawaii, SPAM is one of the major food groups. Not having ever gotten seriously in to SPAM, I couldn't get excited about it but Jon of course loves it. Since we would tire of foil packed tuna for lunch while backpacking we did get a few packs of spam to break up the monotony and it was pretty good. So far we've hit it pretty good with campgrounds on our Passport America membership but that night we stayed at one in Wisconsin and it was pretty dumpy. No problem hitting the road early the next morning!

We spent the past couple of days at Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore which was just on the other side of Chicago in Indiana. It was a perfect way to spend Labor Day weekend with a blast of blistering heat that for once, we could spend at the beach! The park runs for something like 30 miles along Lake Michigan and it is really beautiful with high dunes all along the coast. We walked the beach and just kept getting in the water every so often so we could stay wet. Then we walked the trails- yesterday we summited 3 "peaks"- each one was about 180 feet high! A little different than a few weeks ago. Of course we ended up running from another thunderstorm, this one swept across the lake- a huge black mass that made me glad we weren't on the boat. I have grown so fearful of lightening after that runner was struck dead in Boston.
From Badlands and Indiana Dunes

Since there wasn't a campground spot open anywhere near the park, we stayed in the local Walmart parking lot for 2 nights. We stayed at one a couple of weeks ago for the first time when there was nowhere else to stop and we were among about 20 other campers there. It is a known fact that Walmart welcomes campers & truckers with open arms to camp in their parking lot. And I learned that it is absolutely fine with me if we're enroute someplace or there's nowhere else to stay. Last night our can opener broke and we were craving ice cream...... well, just stroll across the parking lot and get what you need! With the amount we're spending on gas, it feels good to not be forking out money for campgrounds anyway. I'm converted! Whatever I have to do to continue this lifestyle is OK by me.

This morning we left the lake and are almost to Toronto. We plan to just spend tomorrow there to check it out and then make our way to Vermont the day after. We can't believe this segment is over; it'll be hard to put the camper away. But it'll be good to see ol' Evergreen & our families too. If all goes well, we can get the boat ready for the trip south & have a good amount of time afterward to hang out some before heading on down the coast. We've been using the driving time to try & organize ourselves, making lists. I don't suspect I'll have much to write here until we get going in October. I sure hope we have an Indian summer!