I was born in Chicago but grew up in Northern Indiana near the steel mills and oil refineries. The area was known as the Calumet region (near the Little Calumet River) and shortened to the ”Region” in the rest of the state. We were considered tough and worldly wise but our town of Highland was far from that. A couple of my cousins and my brother still live in the general area. So it was a good place to stop for a visit.
We happened to be there during an all class high school reunion and my cousin and I attended. Most of the classmates there had stayed in the area. My class of 1970 missed its 50 year reunion twice due to Covid but not many made it to this one. I was disappointed but the evening was in the high 90’s and 80% humidity and several locals understandably stayed home.
We had a break from camper living and stayed in the air conditioned house. Only had one morning to enjoy the patio when it was a little cooler.
We had a wonderful time visiting my cousin and her husband and getting together with my brother and sister-in-law for cookouts and dinners out.
My cousin took me to the Veteren’s Memorial in Munster to see the brick my sister placed for my dad. She and my other cousin also ordered them.
We had the rest of week three planned for another reunion. I went to high school for two years with a very small group of girls. Our school was so small it closed after our sophomore year. But we had strong ties to those memories and two of us traveled to camp near a few of the others at Cedar Lake. We tried to entice more of our classmates to join us but though that didn’t happen we had five of us. We thoroughly enjoyed a nice dinner at a Cedar Lake restaurant and a cookout at a lovely Crown Point farmstead built by one of the families.
Fortunately the hot and humid weather finally broke and we could sit outside comfortably. For some of us it had been 54 years since we had been together and it felt like yesterday. What an amazing thing time and life changing memories are.
We were gone quite a while and we missed our grandkids so we hurried home. We were on the road 11 hours the first day and 7 the next. I love travel in the RV.