On a beautiful day in early September, I drive to the Oak Ridge Prairie County Park near Griffith, Indiana. The county park is the trailhead for the Oak Savannah Trail which runs ten miles west to Hobart. From Hobart, it connects with the Prairie Duneland Trail for another six miles, and then it's a short road ride to the Calumet Trail which runs nine miles along and through the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore.
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| Oak Savannah Trail, IN |
Northern Indiana is surprisingly well-endowed with bike trails. Griffith also connects to the Erie-Lackawanna Trail and the Chesapeake & Ohio Greenway. The trails are well-marked, but a map is useful to navigate the city streets between trailheads. A young girl in Hobart sees me consulting my paper map and helpfully explains, "The bike trail is by the Dairy Queen!" I imagine the Dairy Queen is the center of her universe, but her hint is not helpful as I have no idea where the Dairy Queen is either.
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| Calumet Trail, IN |
At the end of the Calumet Trail there are a couple of the nicest beaches anywhere. Mount Baldy is a massive living sand dune with beautiful views of Lake Michigan and a steep face perfect for running down. But if you want to avoid carrying a bike up and over sand dunes, go to Central Beach at the end of Central Avenue. It's a short walk from the end of the pavement to the water and Central Beach rarely has the crowds and litter one finds at the nearby state park.
On this day, the sun is out and the wind has pushed the warm surface water to shore so it's a delightful temperature for swimming. The storms from the day before, however, have kicked up the waves -- I mean, they are rocking! -- so despite a sizable crowd at the beach, no one is in the water. With good reason, Lake Michigan can be dangerous on days like this. Riptides can sweep even the strongest swimmers away from shore. Many people mistakenly try to swim against the current, leading to exhaustion and drowning. The trick is to swim parallel to the shore until you are free of the current, then swim back to land.
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| Central Beach, Indiana Dunes |
As I eat my lunch, a group of twenty-somethings come along and immediately head into the water. As I watch them enter the waves I wonder if a riptide sweeps them out to sea, will they know what to do? I contemplate a rescue plan of creating a flotation device by filling my spare inner tube with my portable CO2 pump.
I learned about riptides firsthand during a family vacation to North Carolina in 2006. We were staying at a beach house on the Outer Banks. After a near miss by Tropical Storm Beryl, the sun was out and the surf was up. Looking to test our boogie boarding skills, we scouted the beach for the biggest waves and were really enjoying ourselves when we heard faint cries of "Help! Help!"
At first, we ignored the yelling until we saw a girl swimming in who was obviously upset. I then realized that there were many people out beyond the breakers calling out for help. I told Matt and Lauren to fetch the rest of our floaties (we had quite a collection by then) and I immediately swam out with the raft.
I first came upon a young girl, maybe eleven years old, swimming in while crying. I gave her my raft. Next, I came upon a boy, a few years younger, and attempted to rescue him with a life-saving stroke I learned years earlier in Junior Lifesaving. What worked in a pool thirty years ago proved useless in a real emergency. I realized I couldn't do anything without the raft the girl was swimming away with.
"Wait," I called out. "We need the raft." She hesitated and then kept going. I asked the boy, "What's your sister's name?"
"Michelle," he answered and then we both called, "Michelle, wait!" Finally, she stopped and waited for us -- probably one of the bravest things she's ever done. When I got them both on the raft, the boy turned to me and said, "Please save my dad, he's a really nice guy." The girl just continued to cry.
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| North Carolina's Outer Banks on a calm day |
I looked out to sea and saw just a head bobbing in the big waves well offshore. He was struggling. I knew I couldn't do anything without a raft, so I told the kids we'd have to get him together. They were brave as we paddled back out. As we got closer, I could see his head going under water with each wave. "Hold on one more time! You can do it!" I called out.
We finally reached him with the raft. As we paddled in, the father said with desperation in his voice, "Don't leave us." When we were within shouting distance of the shore, Mona called out, also with desperation in her voice, "Matt and Lauren are still out in the surf."
"Crap, while I'm saving this family, my own children are drowning," I thought.
It turned out after I left Matt and Lauren at the beach, they had collected the remaining floaties and headed out to do their own rescuing -- Lauren with the River Rat inner tube and Matt with two boogie boards.
As a rescuer swam by Lauren, she offered him the inner tube, "You're a faster swimmer than me." He accepted the raft and later we saw him bring four people back to the beach with it. Moments after giving up the tube, Matt arrived with the extra boogie board for Lauren and that's how I found them -- calmly paddling in on the boogie boards.
Back on the sand, I asked a rescued teenager if they swam out too far. "No," he answered. "We were just pushed out into deep water!" A textbook description of a riptide! A few minutes later the beach patrol arrived. In the end, no one was hurt. If we count the four people on the inner tube, the Frisbies saved seven lives that day.
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| The Outer Banks sand was too hot for this pampered dog's paws! |
Self-congratulations aside, I think the sister and brother probably would have made it back to shore on their own, but the dad was in real trouble. I also learned that you can't save anyone without some kind of flotation device which is why, years later, I find myself contemplating filling my spare inner tube with the portable CO2 pump.
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| Central Beach, Indiana Dunes |
Back at the Indiana Dunes, after fifteen minutes of watching the twenty-somethings have the most amazing time among the waves without being swept away, I strip down to my biker shorts and take the last swim of the summer.
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| Route |
Ride Summary:
- State: Indiana
- Date: 2010-09-04
- Route: Griffin to Indiana Dunes, Central Beach
- Distance: 60 miles