Dragonfly is on the move again. We hitched her up yesterday and drove 390 miles to East Chicago, IN, where we spent the night in air conditioned comfort at the Ameristar Casino Hotel. Our original plan was to drive down on Sunday to avoid weekday Chicago traffic, but we delayed our departure by a day due to high heat and high winds. Conditions on Monday did not improve, with a high temperature of 98F, tropical humidity and wind gusts into the 30s—we decided to travel anyway, but opted not to launch the boat and sleep aboard in the sweltering heat. Chicago traffic was as bad as we’ve seen it, and maneuvering during rush hour hauling a 30-foot boat trailer was pretty stressful. To get to the Ameristar, we drove for miles through an enormous industrial area and found the casino nestled between a small marina and a beautiful public beach, all surrounded by steel mills and coal plants. We ate dinner in the hotel’s sports bar, then watched reruns of The Office until we fell asleep.
This morning we arrived at Hammond Marina around 9:00 AM, checked in, launched Dragonfly into Lake Michigan without incident, motored to the fuel dock to take on gas, then to our assigned slip, where we began to rig the boat for cruising. We dropped off our trailer at our storage location, then ate lunch in town and bought provisions. It was another hot, humid day, with a high of 97F, but an afternoon front brought a few rain showers and a wind shift from south to north, bringing cooler air in from the lake. Map link: Hammond Marina.
Indiana is the 13th state that we’ve visited on the Great Loop, and we’ve now completed our HOMES Certification, having boated on all five Great Lakes: Huron, Ontario, Michigan and Erie on Dragonfly and 25 years on Lake Superior aboard a collection of different sailboats.
We are less than a mile from the Illinois-Indiana state line, and still in the Central Time Zone. Six counties in northwestern Indiana observe Central Time due to their proximity to Chicago. Another six counties in southwest Indiana are also on Central Time, with the remaining 80 counties on Eastern Time. Fun fact: Indiana did not adopt statewide daylight saving time until 2006. Apparently, time zones are a touchy subject here, and you can get a rise out of many Hoosiers by bringing it up. Bonus Question: When did the United States begin using time zones? (answer at the end of post).
Bonus Question Answer: In November of 1883, our four standard time zones (Pacific, Mountain, Central and Eastern) were established, not by the U.S. Government, but by the nation’s railroads in order to better synchronize and schedule rail traffic. Before then, most locales in the country set their own time, based on the position of the sun. In the late-19th century, there were more than 140 local times, complicating rail schedules and resulting in delays, missed connections and collisions. Railway executives agreed that something had to be done, and unilaterally implemented our current system of four time zones. There were pockets of resistance from those who resented the railroads’ arrogance, the loss of local autonomy and even the “disregard for God and nature,” but the switch quickly became accepted. Interestingly, the United States Congress would not formally adopt the Standard Time Act until 1918. Fun facts: Russia has 11 time zones, while all of China operates on Beijing Standard Time.
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