LA to NJ Road Trip: Day 7
8/3/16. Our first stop today was at Pullman National Monument just south of Chicago. This historical district was just made into a national monument last year (thanks, Obama!). It was the first model, planned industrial community for the Pullman Company which made Pullman train cars. It was the scene of the violent 1984 Pullman strike which led to the creation of Labor Day as a federal holiday.
We had a wonderful history lesson, brought to life on a walking tour of the town which still has many of the original buildings. Our tour had an interesting group of people, including a woman who just wrote a book about being the first African-American airline flight attendant, and two young girls who were riding bikes in town and decided to join our tour. Interestingly, they lived in Pullman but had no idea of the town's history. I hope the park does more outreach to schools!
It was a fascinating tour and we learned a great deal. I highly recommend this park unit, especially as they improve and add onto the tour and grounds with the support of the National Park Service now.
Next we drove to Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. We arrived early afternoon and explored the educational center and went to one of the many beaches surrounded by the very high dunes. Lake Michigan is immense. We could see nothing but water all the way to the horizon.
It was very interesting to compare this lake ecosystem to the barrier island ecosystem that we are more familiar with. The nice thing was that the lake was being used by many families. What a great use of taxpayer money!
We left late in the afternoon for a 5 hour drive to Ohio. We can tell we're closer to home since the landscape looks so familiar and the traffic is getting very heavy! Looking forward to the last day of our trip tomorrow.
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