# 4 - Where I live

* I live in Michigan City, Indiana - population about 35,000 - on the tip of Lake Michigan, about halfway between South Bend (home of the Fighting Irish) and Chicago (da' Bears) - and, there is also the Indianapolis Colts. It's all SO emotionally upsetting sometimes, ya know?

It might sound strange to some of you, but Michigan City is a resort town! Yep! We have one of the country's last working lighthouses (above) and beautiful Lake Michigan during the summer - with the sailboats, racing boats and cruisers dotting the sparkling blue/green waters of one of the world's largest inland lakes. In the winter time, the lake freezes over for hundreds of feet along the shore. But the ice is deceiving. Because of the lake's ever-moving tide, there is always moving water under the ice shelf - causing the shelf to be VERY unstable and dangerous to walk on. The lake can be dangerous in the summer time too though. Because the lake is so large, it is subject to rip tides, similar to those found along sea shores. Each year, at least half a dozen swimmers and/or kayakers disappear due to the rip currents along Lake Michigan's shore.

In fact, "Lake Michigan is the only one of the Great Lakes wholly within the borders of the United States; the others are shared with Canada. It has a surface area of 22,400 square miles (bigger than Massachusetts and Vermont put together), making it the largest lake entirely within one country by surface area, and the fifth largest lake in the world. It is 307 miles long by 118 miles wide with a shoreline 1,640 miles long. The lake's average depth is 279 feet, while its greatest depth is 923 feet." (http://www.epa.gov/glnpo/atlas/index.html) Legend says there are hundreds of "sunken ships" hiding on the bottom of the lake - anyone ever heard of The Edmund Fitzgerald (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Edmund_Fitzgerald)?

We're also home to Mt. Baldy - one of the country's only "living" dunes - moving an average of 4 feet per year, nicknamed the "singing sands" because of the noise the silica sand makes as it is blown around by the lake shore winds. http://www.nps.gov/indu/planyourvisit/mt-baldy.htm

* Indiana is known for its beautiful fall foliage. In the fall, Parke County, Indiana has a Covered Bridge Festival Tour that is HUGE.

http://www.coveredbridges.com/



* We're also pretty proud of Door Prairie Barn, an eight-sided barn built in 1878 by M. J. Ridgway, a breeder horses - of Clydesdale stock brought here from Scotland and Norman Draft horses from France. The stalls were built in a pie shape, around a round central core. Straw and hay, kept in the loft, could then be funneled down the center of the barn and easily transferred to individual stalls.

http://www.laportecountyhistory.org/jan04.htm


* Our county seat is located nearby in La Porte, Indiana. This is a picture of our courthouse, built in 1833 (before Indiana was even a state), at a price of $3,975. It was built from "well-burnt brick" that was made on the site.

* Have you ever heard of Belle Gunness? Purported to have killed as many as 40 men, she came to La Porte and set up housekeeping in 1900 - only to become our very own legendary female serial killer! http://www.laportecountyhistory.org/belleg1.htm

HAPPY HALLOWEEN !!!!!


Welcome to my "neck"of the woods!!!!
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