It was early September and we decided that it was time to hit the road to find some places in our great country that we hadn't seen. We were headed to Chicago as our first major stop and timed so that we'd be there at dawn on a Sunday morning.

Our first stop was the military campground at Lake Allatoona in Georgia--outside of the metro Atlanta area. It's a good day's drive from home and we've stayed here before. The swim in the lake was quite pleasant after driving all day.

The next stop was the military campground at Fort Knox where we did a little more strolling around the grounds.
 
Some fall color was just beginning to show.

We startled a flock of ducks on the pond.

 
A groundhog checked us out before waddling back into the woods. And behind us, the waxing moon...

The third night we stayed at Indiana dunes at the southern end of Lake Michigan. 
(We stayed here in 2003 during our first grand adventure.) 
We rode our bikes from the campground the mile or so to the beach.

If you squint, you can see Chicago from here.

  
We love finding heart-shaped stones. Looking back from the beach, someone is taking advantage of the onshore winds.

On the way back from the beach, we stopped at this cute train station to check out the schedule to see if we could avoid driving into Chicago. It was perfect--we planned to be there for the 5:30am train into the city. We'd go all the way to the end of the line at Millennium Park and arrive shortly after sunrise.

 
The station was utterly charming.

We'd catch the train tomorrow (Sunday), but meanwhile back at the campsite, a spicebush swallowtail basks on a sassafras tree.

The station's neon sign looked cool the next morning. This is a whistle-stop station, so within 10 minutes of the train's scheduled arrival, we pushed a button to turn on a strobe light to stop the train. Very cool.

An hour and a half later, we were at Millennium Park. Easy!

Our first stop was the popular reflective bean sculpture. Even at this time of day, there were a fair number of people checking out their reflections and those of the buildings around the park.