After leaving Colorado we headed due East along I70. Stopping for the night in a Kansas State Park to break up the long journey, our next destination was St. Louis, Missouri, for our next National Park.
Gateway Arch National Park
This park was unlike any we’ve visited before as it’s literally in the middle of St. Louis on the banks of the Mississippi River. The arch denotes the starting place for many travellers as they headed west following in the footsteps of Lewis and Clark.
The arch does have an upper viewing gallery. Given the structures curve, you need to take part lift, part tram, part ferris wheel to reach the top of the tallest monument in the USA at 630 ft. We don’t think this contraption has been updated since the arch was built in the early 60’s. Luckily we did make it up and back down in one piece, although there was plenty of creaking.
The next morning we drove over the Mississippi river, leaving Missouri and made our way into Illinois, ‘Lincoln’s state’ as you’ll see at the bottom of all Illinois number plates. We thought it was fitting to make a quick stop in Springfield (no connection to the Simpson’s) at Abraham Lincoln’s home before he became president. It was also the site of the ‘Great Republican Rally’ in 1860. Although described as a historic site, both our childhood homes are much older than this one!
Indiana Dunes National Park
Indiana Dunes is dotted along the shoreline of Lake Michigan nestled amongst a port, railway line and state park. We had a great camp spot for 2 nights, with almost nobody around and amazing autumnal colours. One of the things that surprised us the most was the fantastic weather. We’re now at the end of October and still getting days of blue sky's and temperatures reaching 82’F/28’C. Ben can continue wearing mostly shorts for a little while yet…
Although these dunes are very different to Great Sand Dunes National Park in Colorado [link to Blog] in terms of the vegetation, bird life and setting, one constant is the sand and the fact it gets everywhere… Just as we thought we had de-sanded most our belongings, here we were topping it back up again!
We did a number of walks throughout the park, but our favourite was actually in the adjoining State Park and is known as the ‘3 dune challenge.’ While smaller than the dunes we’d hiked the week before, the trail winded through woodland, crossed boardwalks, up and down dunes and had epic views across the lake with Chicago faintly in the distance.
Harris Walz Rally - Wisconsin
Being a week out from the election, and travelling through a number of swing states, we have passed a lot of political yard signs over the last week or so. Although not part of the National Park plan, after some googling we found out that Kamala Harris was holding a Get Out to Vote Rally in Madison Wisconsin. While 4 hours in the wrong direction, we felt it was worth the detour to go attend a US political rally, show our support to Kamala, and fingers crossed see the future Madam President before she was elected.
The Get Out to Vote Rallies are aimed to encourage political participation for younger/first time voters. Part of the format is to have a number of musical artists supporting the event. Lucky for us we got to watch Mumford and Sons, Gracie Abrams (JJ Abrams daughter) and listen to local democrat senators and governors before she arrived!
The invite suggested campaign or university attire. Being from out of state, with only hiking clothing on this trip, we were struggling to muster up something to wear. Guessing there would be campaign t-shirts to purchase inside, Ben decided he would ‘risk it’ and only wear a jumper/sweater as no bags of any kind were allowed inside the event. Luckily enough for Ben, a Madison local was selling $20 Wisconsin ‘we fight, we win’ shirts just prior to going through the secret service security check point. Mel was thoroughly disappointed as asking him to remove his jumper with nothing on underneath would have been thoroughly entertaining!
After a fantastic event that was literally like something out of an episode of the West Wing, we left the stadium to find our 31 day, no rain streak had come to an end. Although our hotel was only a 10 minute walk away we arrived drenched, but boy was this rally worth it!
What’s Next
We now continue our journey East. We have an 8 hour drive before we visit Cuyahoga NP in Ohio, which will be in our 17th State of this trip. From there we plan to start heading South for Shenandoah NP and the Appalachian mountains.
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