"I don't live in a cornfield" a Hammond Travel Page by Dabs

The Robertsdale section of Hammond, Indiana has been my home since 1989 when I got married to my husband David who was born and raised right down the street from where we currently live. His mother still lives down the street from us and while some might gasp in horror at that prospect there are all kinds of fringe benefits including babysitting the dog and cats while we are on vacation, Sunday lunch and home made cookies (my scale may not agree that the last one is a benefit!)

When asked where we live when abroad, I often tell people I live in Chicago, tell people you live in Indiana and immediately they think you are a farmer (just ask my VT friend rmdw). In reality, I live about a mile from the Chicago city limits, 30 minutes from downtown Chicago, in a pleasant residential community surrounded by industry.

Like many industrial areas it has upsides-low property taxes, reasonable housing costs and downsides-industrial smells and scenery that includes smokestacks and hulking factories. Depending on which way the wind is blowing the smells can be soap (not so bad), rotting corn or an odd rotting pumpkin smell that no one can explain to me.

Don't get me wrong, I realize that industry is a positive thing, it creates jobs and provides the US with a product to sell other than Big Macs and Whoppers. But for someone growing up on the North Shore of Chicago, it took a little adjusting to equate industry not with the sweet smell of Sara Lee coffee cake but with the grittier steel mills and oil refineries.

For an industrial area, there are many natural areas, you just have to know where to look. We are surrounded by water-Lake Michigan to the east and the north, George Lake to the south and Wolf Lake to the west.

As if you need any further proof that my husband is a little nutty, here he is out on a bitterly cold January day taking his ice boat for a spin. I think he eventually started feeling his thumbs again about 24 hours later!