Michigan City

Having spent the majority of Wednesday outside in the blistering Northern Indiana summer (seriously, the locals were saying it was a historic high), we decided that Thursday would be mainly indoors. This turned out to be a good thing for an entirely different reason: The Canadian Wildfires of 2026 had spread smoke throughout the northern Mid-West states. When at the beach yesterday, a couple noted that Chicago was usually more visible across the lake, but that was the only noticeable difference in air quality. Thursday was far different. The smoky haze was everywhere, making it hard to see any distance at all. Stacy had a little trouble breathing due to the smoke.

So spending our time in nice air-conditioned buildings turned out to be a great idea. We started at the Barker Mansion. This mansion was constructed by John Barker who moved to Michigan City and founded a freight car manufacturing plant. When he died, he passed ownership on to his son John Barker who married Katherine. They had a child named Catherine who lived in the house until the mid 20th century. So yes we have two John Barkers and two C(K)atherines -- not at all confusing. The elder John Barker built a large house befitting a wealthy business owner, but his son transformed the house into a 38 room mansion. It was absolutely huge, but he only got to live in the house about 1 year before he died, leaving the house to his only daughter Catherine Barker (eventually Hickox). The house was huge, 3 stories plus a basement. It was amazingly decorated as one might expect from such a wealthy family. The tour was self-guided with a provided iPad that explained everything in the house.

We  toured the formal living room, moving into the dining room. The dining room table had a button underneath where the hostess could summon the butler. Julia and Joanna had fun finding it. We got to tour Catherine's childhood room, her teenage room, and her adult room. The library was amazing. There were paintings and sculptures everywhere and the wood carvings we very impressive. Today the house can be reserved for weddings and other special events.

We eventually toured the basement, which is more a museum that covers the business side of things. It shows how many freight cars they built, what they looked like and a model of the buildings used for their construction. When the tour was over, I asked the ladies why John Barker chose to live in Michigan City instead of the much more famous Chicago, an easy 50 miles away. They said that it was because Chicago wasn't that big back then. This may have been true in 1855, when Chicago was a mere 10x larger than Michigan City. But by 1870 when these railroad tycoons had achieved their wealth, Chicago was nearly 100x larger. I understand that the business was in Michigan City, but you would think that draw to the big city would have been hard to resist.

Once the tour of the Barker Mansion was over, we went to the nearby Striebel Pond for lunch. Then we took a pleasant walk around the pond. It was here that Stacy started having difficulty breathing the smoke from Canada. But we made the 1 mile hike around the pond, seeing the birds as we went.

Next up was the Old Lighthouse of Michigan City. This was a neat tour. We started at admissions where the man taking our money was very excited to talk to our kids. He showed them a magic trick and fooled me with a math problem. There were all sorts of paraphernalia in the lighthouse: many model boats, pictures of the old times, World War 2 items, and a pump organ. There was a man playing the pump organ when we got there and he talked our ear off about the history of the lighthouse. The lighthouse's most famous keeper was Harriet Colfax who served from 1861 to 1904, resigning at the age of 80. We then took the stairs up to the top of the lighthouse in an old spiral metal staircase. It frightened Joanna to no end. But we all made it to the top. 

Then it was back to the house for some relaxation before dinner. We watched Lego Batman while Stacy took a nap in the back. We went to Round the Clock for dinner. The food was good, but the breakfast looked amazing. I wondered if we could fit in breakfast at the restaurant before leaving. Unfortunately, that would have made leaving on Friday much later than we would have wanted. One thing we noticed in the north was that fried chicken just wasn't that good. It didn't matter where we got it, it was consistently not that good, even if the chicken was welled cooked and high quality (like it was at the restaurant). Stacy decided to ask the manager about it. He was quite proud of the food, and when questioned about the spices used in the breading, he said it was just simple seasonings like salt and pepper. Stacy asked if they added paprika, he was shocked and said that they would never use such spicy ingredients. There was our answer, in the north bland food is good food.

For the evening, we went to Fairhaven Baptist Church. Yes, they have services on Thursday strangely enough. We were confused when we arrived, because while we got there 10 minutes early, the service apparently had already started. Turns out they have their workers meeting before service on Thursdays, so we hadn't arrived late after all. The service was very nice. Afterwards we got to talk to the assistant pastor who gave us a guided tour of the college. Along the way we met all sorts of people who knew Pastor Logan, Pastor Adam Thompson, the Burdett's, Stacy's teenage church. It just kept going. We didn't leave until over an hour after service because we kept meeting people who had some connection to us.

Friday, it was time to go home. The smoke was bad as ever, and it wasn't until nearly 2 hours of driving south that it started to clear. By now everybody knows about the famous Buc-ees gas station, but while in Indiana we stopped at a Wally's. It is basically the same thing, but with one major difference: there were no signs telling us where to stop. We needed gas and I pulled over because I saw a Loves or something, and it wasn't until I was off the highway that I saw the Wally's. Because of this, it was practically empty when we went in. A gas station like that only works with major traffic, and without advertising I don't see how it will be able to sustain itself.

We arrived home in time for dinner and thus ended our summer vacation.