Valparaiso, IN
Chef Carlos grew up in Galicia, son of an ocean-liner chef, ran a cafe in Madrid in the seventies, and in 1985 opened this room in downtown Valparaiso; forty years on it remains, by its own count, the only Spanish restaurant in Indiana. Seafood paella for two with a Rioja tempranillo is the house's own recommendation, the tapas and jamon are the real thing, and the sangria is the original every patio in town now imitates, by the house's cheerful telling; Carlos brought outdoor dining to Valparaiso back when people laughed at the idea. Live Spanish entertainment some nights. Dinner only: from 5 on weekdays, from 2 on Saturdays, closed Sundays; reservations are wise on weekends. The courthouse square is a few blocks east, and the Indiana Dunes are twenty miles north. People do drive from Chicago for this.
The closest GA airport to Indiana Dunes National Park and the Lake Michigan shoreline. The dunes — some over 200 feet high — are visible from the pattern, and on clear days the Chicago skyline is visible 35 miles across the lake. Valparaiso (locally just "Valpo") is home to Valparaiso University. The legendary Strongbow Inn (operated 1940-2014, recently reopened) was a fly-in destination for decades — check current status. Fly the lakeshore for some of the most underrated scenic flying in the Midwest.
Indiana's only national park (designated 2019, formerly a national lakeshore). 15 miles of Lake Michigan shoreline with dunes towering over 200 feet — Mount Baldy is the most famous, an actively migrating dune that moves up to 4 feet per year. From the air, the dunes are a stunning ribbon of golden sand against blue water. On clear days the Chicago skyline is visible 35 miles to the west — a postcard moment from the pattern at KVPZ. The park is one of the most biodiverse units in the National Park Service — over 1,100 plant species (more than the Everglades). Pair with a low-altitude lakeshore tour from Gary east to Michigan City.
Indiana's only operational lighthouse — a striking white tower at the entrance to Michigan City harbor on Lake Michigan. The current structure dates to 1904, replacing the original 1858 lighthouse. The Old Lighthouse Museum next door tells the story of Great Lakes shipping and Indiana's small but vital lakefront. From the pattern at KMGC, the lighthouse is an unmistakable landmark. Combine with a beach walk on Washington Park Beach (one of Indiana's few sand beaches) and the Indiana Dunes National Park stretching west.
Lake Maxinkuckee is the second-largest natural lake in Indiana — a clear, spring-fed glacial lake of about 1,800 acres in the northern Indiana lake country. On its northwest shore sits the town of Culver, and on the lakefront sits one of the most distinctive prep schools in America: the Culver Academies, founded in 1894. Culver is best known for two things. The Culver Black Horse Troop is a mounted unit of cadets that has ridden in nearly every presidential inaugural parade since 1913 — a column of matched black horses that is one of the most recognizable units in American ceremonial life. And the Culver equestrian program is one of the largest school horse operations in the country, keeping a herd well over a hundred head, with a riding hall the size of a small arena. The campus is a collection of collegiate-gothic and Georgian buildings along the water, with a chapel and a memorial to alumni lost in the world wars. Culver''s summer naval program teaches seamanship on the lake from a fleet of sailing dinghies; the sailing and crew traditions are as old as the cavalry. Lake Maxinkuckee was a Gilded Age summer-resort lake — the humorist George Ade kept a place nearby, and cottages still ring the shore. The lake is a glacial kettle, gouged and then filled when the last ice sheet retreated, and its depth and clarity are unusual for Indiana.
Pullman was America's first planned model industrial community. George Pullman, the railroad-car magnate whose sleeping cars revolutionized long-distance travel, founded it in 1880 on what was then farmland 13 miles south of Chicago. He hired architect Solon Spencer Beman and landscape architect Nathan F. Barrett to design a complete town — factory, row houses, hotel, church, library, school, parks — and rented every building to his workers. Pullman believed that good housing and amenities would produce loyal, productive employees. The experiment ran for fourteen years. In 1894, after a national depression cut demand for sleeping cars, Pullman slashed wages without lowering rents. The Pullman Strike that followed shut down rail traffic across the country and ended only when President Cleveland sent in federal troops. Thirty workers died. The 1894 strike is the reason Labor Day became a federal holiday — Congress passed it days after the troops withdrew, hoping to mollify the labor movement. The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, organized by A. Philip Randolph in 1925 from the ranks of Pullman's Black porter workforce, became the first Black-led labor union to win a collective bargaining agreement with a major American corporation. Michelle Obama's grandfather was a Pullman porter. President Obama designated Pullman a National Monument in 2015 — the first National Park Service unit in Chicago. President Biden signed legislation redesignating it Pullman National Historical Park on December 29, 2022. The 1880-era street grid, more than 1,300 row houses, the Hotel Florence (named for Pullman's daughter), the Administration Clock Tower Building, and the Greenstone Church are nearly all intact.