Quest and Venture

  After a week of driving we found ourselves on the shore of Lake Michigan, in Indiana Dunes State Park. We had been driving for more than three hours ( a long time for our two kids) so were happy to be out and stretching our legs. The conditions weren’t safe for swimming, and despite coming dressed to swim (if everyone’s doing it , we can too, right?) we did not venture into the water. No one, in fact, dared to swim.   Instead we piddled around on the beach, tossing rocks into the crashing waves, while I checked every single gull I could. Most of them were ring-billed. One was a herring gull. None were the monstrously large Greater Black-Backed Gull that I so desperately want to see. I mean, it’s the largest gull in the WORLD. How cool is that?  Because we couldn’t swim, I had it in mind that we could climb to the top of one of the dunes (there was a trail, Leo reiterated many times that we were not to walk on the dunes because birds might be nesting there) but it q...