WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - Off the Trails: Indiana Dunes With the Boys

Episode Date: September 27, 2025

Join Nicole Sighiartau and Storm Drexler as they discuss some of their wildest experiences in the great outdoors! This week they are joined by Nate Gallagher, Andrew Hawken, and Liam Brennan to recount their thrilling adventure in Indiana Dunes National Park. 

You're listening to Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. Welcome to Off the Trails. It's me, Storm Drexler. And I'm Nicole Seguirateau, and we'll be your adventure buddies every week as we discuss some of our wildest stories from our outdoor endeavors. This week, we have three very special guests on with us. Would you guys like to introduce yourselves? Not really, but I will because I'm a very brave boy.

My name is Nate Gallagher. I am mostly known as the legendary host. with Storm a boys only podcast. I'm Andrew Hawking, and I'm just a random dude that went along this week. I'm a Liam Brennan. I still don't know why I'm here. Nicole, there's five people in this room.

There are five people recording and only four microphones. Let's not let that one. We have to let them decide who's sharing. We're going to make it work. Anyway, so last weekend, we went on a little day trip to the Indiana Dunes per Nate's request because Nate has never been

to a National Park before That's not true No no no Nate has a you have a book Oh yeah I guess a quick thing The National Park Service sells a book of stamps You can get a stamp at every single thing

Run by them not just the big parks But like monuments Seashores Lake shores even It's a lot of it's a great fun And I enjoy collecting And you get stamps Somebody comes out of the lake

And stamps your book This is truth This is truth This is not the truth This is truth Anyway before we get the episode, Storm, what's your trail marker? Oh, gosh. From last week, got junk scared by my trail marker. What's your trail marker from last week?

You told me you were going to remind me because you were like, that's a great one for you. So as we were driving to the Indiana dunes, we got to see the sunrise because we left rather early. This is a true thing. My trail marker this week is that I witnessed my first sunrise since I was like 10 years old. No, no, I've seen something. But it was my first one in recent memory. We were driving because Nicole made us wake up at like 5 a.m., which totally worth it, but 5 a.m. And we were driving and then behind us the sun rose and it was like the whole sky was red. And now that I'm seeing this out, I feel like, I feel like a sentimental girl who's like, oh my God, guys, look at this guy. But it was hella pretty. So you would have loved to see it.

It was very beautiful. I think Nate was asleep at that point, though. I was dead asleep. I have a pretty great video where I twist my phone around and I get a little shot on everyone and Nate's just conked. A little background. How many of you had pooled all-nighters that night? One. Me. Me. Three. Three. So that was Liam, Nate and Storm. Yeah, I hadn't gotten any... Okay, I'd gotten like 30 minutes of sleep right before I woke up at 5 a.m. I went to bed on 4.30 in the morning. That's another story. Tune in next week. Yeah, so I had tried to just be like, okay, we're at 4.45 in the morning. I know me. If I try to go to bed, I'm either going to sleep all the way through it or be just completely belligerent to wake up.

I don't really want to do that. So I just said, I'm going to pull an all nighter. It didn't go quite as planned because I got really tired. I got halfway through it. But it was like 1 a.m. so I'm like, I can't go to sleep now. Then I'll sleep through it. Liam, you actually weren't initially in the plans.

We had to have this planned for like a month or something with the four of us. But then what happened that brought you along for the adventure? I was just up, chilling and Simpson. And Nate, just like walked into the Southside lobby and so we were hanging out and I was like, well, I'm just not gonna go to sleep now.

And so I was up till four just naturally as that happens in dorm life. And then Nate kind of like, gradman was like, hey, you should come with us. I was like, no, I cannot do this. Wait, you were resistant to the idea first? Well, I was like, this is a... plan that these people, my good friends have had

for a long time. I don't want to impose and maybe that's just my own. Plus, there's only four microphones in this. That's exactly what I thought about. You are the worst. I am the worst. I think that Andrew and I were very grateful that you came along and brought some peace and stability to our little group. Much needed.

Yes. Thanks? Andrew was our, real backhanded there. Andrew was our trusty driver who also informed us that we were running a little behind schedule when he went into Storm's room and saw that. Storm was a

sleep. My roommate. Well, yeah, Andrew, you want to say, what happened? So I went into Storm's room at about 5 a.m. when we were supposed to leave, and he was fast to sleep. So I woke him up, and then came back up to check on him about five minutes later, and he was searching all over his room for his phone, which he could not find. Which was the problem. The reason I didn't wake up was because my alarm didn't go off, or it only went off for a split second, because we later found that my roommate had just slapped my alarm and then pulled my phone into his bed. So I looked around the room for like five frantic minutes, like, where did my phone go cool? Because I didn't wake up.

And then my roommate, Cole just wakes up and he's like, his blanket opens. He just hands me his phone. I was like, bro, what? It's like the lion cave in Aladdin just kind of opens. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. But I hope I didn't make us too late. Well, it's okay.

It worked out, and we ended up getting to the National Park around 8. 8 a.m. Because central time, so like there was a con convention. Oh yeah, because we were in Indiana. We were in Central Time, Indiana. Indiana split. It's like half and half. No, it's not in Central Time, but you and is. It's really weird.

That is interesting. But we got to the station around 8 a.m., the Ranger Station, and it was closed. Oh, yeah, the, what's it called? What is that called? The Ranger Station. The Visitor Center. Oh, I guess, yeah. That's where you get the stamps.

That's where you get the stamps. Is it called a Ranger Station usually? Rangers stations are more for like a station like out in the middle of nowhere. That's just a visitor's singer. Sorry, I'm new to nature. I've never been on a nature before. As far as I was concerned, we were in the middle of nowhere. Well, Indiana is the middle of nowhere.

It's Indiana. Yeah. But we got there and we're like, wow, and we get out of the car and we're like, surely we are at the national park. Surely we are out of the location that we were trying to go to. This is not true. This was indeed false. I mean, we had just driven through somewhat of an industrial area, and then all of a sudden it was just all these trees everywhere.

But it still felt like we were very close in proximity to civilization, in my opinion. I don't know. Maybe I had a different view on this. What were your guys' first impressions? I think we're all pretty pumped. That's kind of an important detail, I think, is that we were really excited for this first trek after being very lazy in the car. I was sleeping on the ground at the car because there was not a... Allegedly. It was like a car drive.

I had a seatbelt down there somehow. We just harnessed into the car. This was legal. Yes. But the beginning of the hike did not really go as planned. I mean, Storm found the hike. So I looked on Google Maps and I was like, well, where's the actual Indiana dunes? And since I have no sense of scale, I didn't understand how far we were away from them in the parking lot.

Because on a map, it's right there. Andrew, look, what do you think? And Andrew's like, you know, that's like a mile away. Andrew, this is your fault? I didn't know this. Partially. And I was like, I was like, that's just a mile away. I was like, great, guys, we can just walk a mile and get over there.

So we were like, hazzah. And in high spirits, we set out. With our rain jackets, because I had checked the forecast and saw. 14 of Andrews's range jackets. Three people were wearing Andrews coach. I was wearing Andrews coat. And so was Nicole and so was Andrew. Me and Liam were the only one prepared.

No, I had my own rain jacket. it. Yeah, sure. We'll say that. Okay. But I had checked the weather and saw that it was post-terrain, but before we knew it, it was kind of a torrential downpour about a mile into this hike, because it was definitely way more than a mile to get to the dunes. So we turned out, we walked about two miles, and then we looked down and we were like, we're like a third of the way there. I was like, this was not one mile. So we turned back and it starts raining. and profusely. And now spirits are not as high as they once were,

and we haven't even gotten to the National Park yet. How were you guys feeling about the rain? I didn't mind it too much, but I had a rain jacket, so it was fine. I personally, the last two big hikes I've had over the course of a few years have been in intense rain. So I was, what's the saying?

A frog in a puddle or something? A frog in the rain. Frog in the rain. I was frog in the rain. Thank you. I was a happy. little frog. I was like bouncing ahead of you guys and then I got really tired and you guys

are faster walkers so, but it was good. Yeah, Nicole and I are powerhouses and when it comes to moving. I'm also usually a pretty fast walker, but I pulled an all night or slept in a car for two hours and I don't like, I don't like I don't like being wet. It like rain really hurts me like being outside.

And this wasn't just a little sprinkled. there was lightning thunder and it was raining very hard. The entire time we were there. We didn't let up a second. We go back to the car. So that's like a mile and a half. That's like three miles. We just walked for basically no reason,

which is funny. And then we get back on the car and actually drive to a closer parking lot next to like a campground, I think. And then there was like, oh, there's the dunes. And we saw them. You're listening to Off the Trails on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. Let's get into this dune hike.

What was your guys' first impression of the actual place that we were supposed to be? You know, I don't really, I'm from an island, which you'll know if you listen to boys only. Shameless plug. I really, I don't love sand. Like, it's kind of coarse on the feet. It's kind of rough. It tends to kind of get everywhere. Irritatingly.

It's very irritating. No, I really do love sand, but wet sand is like the worst thing ever because I'm pretty good at walking up and down. dunes because again island but when you're walking up and down your legs and your feet are like are like angled out when you're walking up a dune you have to angle your feet outwards because it gives you more surface area and you're already like kind of naturally like that i don't know if that's really true that's 100% that is super dry penguin you do it yes yeah you turn your feet outwards they give you it gives you more because if you if you do this you're walking like this you're kind of just palming the dune hand gesturing on a podcast as it goes to i i i wish you could see what Nate was

doing with his hands just You can't describe it. Put your palms down and then together and then angle your hands both out against each other. Yeah. That helps a little bit if you are athletically challenged like myself. And then going down is similar. Really? Yeah.

Liam, do you have something to say about this? Yeah, so my first impression was at 5 in the morning when I had not a lot of understanding about what was happening. But I heard sand dunes. So I was like, we're going to go and be Lisa Nal Gaibe. and walk around in the Sahara Desert. I don't know why I expected that in Indiana of all places,

but I was like, we're going to see some great sand. I'm going to roll down some sand dunes. Then we get there and it's all forests. And I kind of, I was a little bit confused. And I kept turning to Andrew and I was like,

you promised me this and it's not there. I mean, yeah, when we got to that campground at the trailhead, it was just a forest. And then we started on this trail. It was trail number eight that I picked out for us.

Oh, that's right. And Bursid Trail number eight. Which has another name. It does, it does. It's also called the Three Dune Challenge. Right. Love this. Trail 8 sounds a lot easier, so that's what I told Liam,

Nate and Storm what we were doing. We're going on Trail 8, and we were like, yippee! Can't wait. And then, you know, of course, they noticed the trail markers that said, you're on the Three Dune Challenge. And I kept saying, no, guys, we're just doing Trail 8. We're just doing Trail 8. It's fine.

And then we climb up this hill, this hill in the woods that's all sand. and we get to the top of it, and we realized that that was the sand dune, and there's trees all over it, which was pretty weird. There is a lot of vegetation growing up out of this dune. I mean, it looked really fake. Andrew even said he's like, they just trucked in all the sand. There's no way this was here beforehand because it just, it doesn't really feel possible for trees to be growing out of sand dunes. I feel like it was just like a regular hike, and they put a ton of sand on the trails. Well, you know what else is funny?

At the top of the three dunes and the three dune challenge, they tell you how many truckloads of sand it is. I was like, how else do they know this? Well, well, well. The first man-made national Freudian Slib. Truggles is as soon as this. Could be any.

But let's keep in mind that the whole time this was going on, it was still raining very aggressively, and this thunderstorm that was going on kept getting closer to us because the lightning would be right above us at times, and you could see the flash of the lightning reflecting off the sand.

There was great weeping and gnashing of teeth. No, but it was a good time for the most part, especially afterwards. But we went down the first dune, up the second one, and when we hit the second one, that's where we could see Lake Michigan. Yes. And then we split up. Yes. So how was that? Yeah, so Nate and Storm and Liam decided to go back to the car, which they didn't know, but that took them to the third Dune for Free Dune Challenge.

They thought they were taking the easy way back. Yeah, they were like, we don't want to go down to the lake because then we have to come back up this hill, and they still had another hill waiting for them. So that was fun. But then Nicole and I went down to Lake Michigan, down to the beach, and at this point it was raining so hard that we were already wet,

so we just jumped in the lake briefly, and then we looked at the lightning and decided that swimming was not the best idea. There was lightning in the sky as we were in the water. Yeah. And I saw that, and I was like, okay, I choose life. There is lightning in the sky. It's very poetic.

So we turned tail and ran, but. Sprint it up the mountain, actually. Sprinted up the mountain away from Lake Michigan. How was the water? Oh, it was like the same temperature as the air. It was so warm and also because... Sensory deprivation Lake. Honestly, that's what it kind of felt like.

And because we were already soaking wet, it didn't really matter. And so walking back up the hill, we're like, who cares about the rain now? It's all good. Yeah. So when we decided to split off, I turned to Andrew and I was like, I'm going to get these boys home. Because the three of us were definitely kind of roughing it.

I was, I don't know what it is. I love the rain, so I was still going strong. Definitely struggling still. But I was like, Andrew, we got to get these guys to the car. These guys being me, it's okay. Yeah, mainly Nate, actually. I was not, I wasn't doing so hot. I'm not used to elevation, all that.

I think the last dune or the one up towards the lake, I like basically carried him. That's how I remember it. That's not. He looked at him and he said, I can't carry it, Mr. photo, but I can carry you. I walked every step. You did, you did the whole thing. Did you guys go up sand or steps? Because when Andrew and I got to the top of the third dune, we saw these steps that also led

up to it. We went up the steps. We thought when we got to the steps, that the steps led up to, like, the visitor center or the parking lot or something. We were like, ah, man-made things. Civilization is near. Because I turned to Andrew and was like, it's just, we just go through eight, right? And he was like, yeah.

Okay, well, you know, there's like a mile left. Because we passed by another thing that said seven. And we're like, no, that will take us off in the middle of nowhere. Surely not. But then what did we learn at the top of the third down? Well, we went up the steps and it was like, I thought I was seeing the promised land. And then it was just more trees and more sand. And I turned towards like one of the plaques with the maps on it.

And I look at it. And we are as far away from the cars as we possibly could be. We were on the edge of the national park. Edge of the known world. And so Nate is behind me, and Storm and I look at each other and we're like, how do we tell him? Like, we're going to have to airlift Nate out of here. If we had taken that seven trail way back down at the bottom,

it would have immediately taken us downhill back the way to the car and the parking lot. But instead you listen to Andrew because he's so trustworthy. I trust him completely. That's your fault. This is true. I had a good time doing all that, really. Looking back, it was a great time.

In the moment, I was like, I was cursing everything. I have a picture of Nate walking up the hill, just in total despair and like, agony. Why am I doing this? Why did I agree to this? It was the rain. It really was the rain. If it wasn't raining, I would be very happy.

Now, I also was personally afflicted by the rain. More specifically, my phone in the rain did not get along. So my phone... Oh, yeah, what happened? My phone got wet and stopped working. Is it that phone? It is this phone. It got...

The one that I see working right now? The one that you see working. But Saturday through Wednesday, it was out of commission. And thankfully, we were able to fix it and replace the screen. And it's all fine and dandy now. That's good. This is good. But yeah, the last bit of the story in our side is we got to the top of the third one.

We went down the other side. And there was a little bit of us not remembering how many dunes we had gone over. So for a second we were like, are we done? Is that it? And we were every corner we rounded, we were all like, please, please do not be another giant mountain of sand. Fortunately, there wasn't. And we just got back out into the middle of some campground. And we were like, where are we?

And then we just asked some people. And they pointed us back in the right direction. So Andrew and I, when we were walking back, we were talking about maybe we could get back to the car before you guys. I didn't actually think that was possible. But, I mean, it did kind of end up. happening. Yeah, it turns out we did get ahead of you guys because you took that detour in the campground and we got lucky and figured out where the car was and kind of beeline. And then we were almost to the car and we heard you guys yelling at us. We had to turn around and go back

and get you guys. You just heard, help. Yeah, but we all got to the back to the car around the same time, relatively safely. A little more wet than I think we would have liked to be. Worse for where, but better. Alive. But alive. And then what did we do for lunch? Well, hang on. Before lunch, we did the most important thing, Nate. We went and got your stamp. I forgot, yeah. How was that? Awesome, dude.

It's so simple. You just, like, take the, like, a, like, a, it's like a library stamp. If you guys ever got a library stamp from a public library, you just take it off. You put it in the ink, kind of sit there for a second, and then just press around your book for, like, two, three seconds. And then just put it back, and you have a pretty, pretty little stamp. Oh, right in the book. I like it. Hand motions add so much depth.

Yes. One day you're going to get all the stamps. Yet, there's four. 190 something. I have seven. I have seven or eight. So which is the next park that we're going to do? River Raisin?

Is that where is that? That's a national battlefield. It's a battlefield. It's a battlefield. It's like an hour and a half away from where we are. This same crew here is going to have some more adventures. You'll probably hear about it on a future episode. Probably.

Liam, do you want to tag along again, but maybe with some more sleep? Only if it's at 5 a.m. Oh, only. Well, the river raisin probably wouldn't be. Let's make sure to pick out a day it's thunderstorm. Oh, yeah. I think it was the fact that I was not expecting to do that at all. Like, I was like, I'm going to study for 12 hours today.

And then that happened. And so I was like, okay, I'm just, I'm sending it. I have to send it completely. So it was very good. The reward was great, however. For at the end of our track, what did we do, Nate? We got Chipotle. Oh, it was glorious.

And Nicole got to be very crunchy and get like some weird lettuce thingy bowl. Grinola all over. Granola. Granola. I got a cereal game. White girl granola. And don't forget, Liam got his bowl of corn. Liam got a bowl of corn.

Legendary bowl of corn. I'll sleep in the car ride back and Liam chucked corn into my mouth. Several times. I got you that corn. He did. I went out and I was like, can I get a cup of corn? And the lady was like, what? Yeah, I guess.

I was too afraid to ask. and Storm is a, you know, not afraid of social things. I was like, Storm, go get me the corn, please. Obtain corn. And then this corn was used against me. You turned it against me. They just kept eating corn in the car. And then you slept with your mouth open, so it's kind of your fault.

Well, I was sitting up, so my jaw kept lowering itself. Gravity bids the corn. Well, anyway, thank you so much for coming on the podcast this week. Do you guys have any final remarks? No. No. If we ever do this again, I'm going to be sad. If we ever do this again, do not invite me.

Do not invite me. It was your idea. I. I feel like this is important to clarify. No, but for real, it was looking back, a great memory, even though it was painful at the time. It was horrific at the time. Sink knee deep and wet sand.

Shared suffering. Yeah. I mean, it was a lot of fun. I do it again. I'll take you guys on any trail that I can convince you to. no matter how hard it is. Bob East Trail is part of the North County Trail, which runs from North Dakota to Vermont.

And we're doing all of it. We're doing all of it. Thanks for that fact. Thank you for listening to Off the Trails on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. We hope you have a great week and make time to go outside and enjoy the great outdoors. We'll see you out there. Happy trails. Yay! Bye guys.

Bye guys.