September 14-16 2026
Ok, who thinks it’s a bit funky to have Michigan City in Indiana? We had a helluva time docking in this place. First, we thought the wall was in the marina so we head in and wandered over to what we thought was the wall. Nope, so we headed back out. BTW, no one was answering the phone or their VHF radio at the marina so we were on our own. I finally found a couple of guys on a boat and asked where was the free wall and he directed us out and to the left. Gotcha. Let’s dock. Well, we docked and that’s when it got worse. The cleats (where we tie the boat) were tiny and small. It was tough to get our larger lines around the cleats. Once we figured it out, we realized we were quite far away from the power box. So, we had to undo all of the lines and pull the boat back about 50 feet so we could connect to the power. I hit my foot on one of the cleats and almost fell into the water. It was hot and I was about ready to explode. Once calmer and connected to power, I took a deep breath and found a lunch restaurant close by that would allow dogs. We had a lovely lunch outside and then wandered around the town for a bit.
The arrow shows where we docked and the power plant is right across the water.
There was a nice restaurant (Shoreline Brewery) within walking distance to the boat and we actually went there twice.
Very dog friendly restaurant.
We decided to be a “tourist” for a morning and went to the Washington Park Zoo. It was a quality small zoo, though it need a bit of a refresher, especially for the large animals. The lions and wolves had some pretty small areas.
Male lion with the female about 50 feet away on a deck, also sleeping.
They had a reflective tape on the large window so the birds wouldn’t fly into it. This bear had a decent size enclosure but was doing the classic repetitive walking back and forth.
Beautiful kingfisher. We actually had this bird painted on the side of our Glastar plane that Howard built in 2015. It was on the pilot side door.
Such a colorful macaw! Again, the enclosure was too small.
One thing I will say about the Washington Park zoo, you could get very close to the animals. They had three eagles that had been injured and couldn’t fly.
We hiked up to the top of the zoo which had a tower with steps up to a view.
We wandered around Michigan City trying to find some type of grocery store and all I found was a small farmer’s market which didn’t have what we needed. It is tough when you don’t have transportation. I guess I could have done an Instacart, but we really only need a few items (milk, a couple of veges and eggs). Oh well, we survived.
This tow docked in front of us both nights we were on the wall. The captain was pretty good, but it was tough having to watch him get so close to the boat.
We headed out on Wednesday, Sept. 16 for Chicago. We were planning to leave the boat for a trip home to see family and friends.