Day Three: The Sleeping Bear Dunes (Pt. 1)

The legend goes like this . . .

. . . A forest fire on the western shore of Lake Michigan drove a mother bear and her two cubs into the lake for shelter. After miles and miles of swimming, the mother bear reached the other side but the two cubs did not. She waited and waited for them until the Great Spirit, impressed by her love and determination, created two islands in the cubs' place. North and South Manitou Islands. Eventually, winds buried the mother bear under the sands where she still waits today.

I'm not really sure what I was expecting of the Sleeping Bear Dunes. It's not like I wasn't expecting it to be cool. Kelli discovered that the village of Empire, where it is located, is pushing to have the Dunes established as the 8th World Wonder. In 2011, ABC's Good Morning America named the Sleeping Bear Dunes the "Most Beautiful Place in America." So we knew this place was going to be cool. But for some reason, the experience far surpassed any expectations I had. That's just how awesome this place was. It left us speechless. It was Kelli's favorite part of the trip. It may have been mine too. (Even though we did visit a number of cool breweries . . .)

Part of our speechlessness was because we were exhausted from carrying two children up this . . .

 

The "Dune Climb" is over 200 feet high. Pictures, cannot do this climb justice. In places, it is incredibly steep. The worst part is, once you reach the top (of the picture above, where the sand meets the sky), you are not done. You have another daunting climb to make! After caving in on biking 'round Mackinac, we were determined to climb to the top!

Originally we had planned to shop and hang out on the beach in Traverse City on Day 3 and visit the Dunes on Day 4. But the weather forecast changed our minds. Bright, clear skies and cooler temperatures were on schedule for Day 3 and clear skies and HOT temperatures were on schedule for Day 4 so we decided to flip our plans. Traverse City, where we were staying for the next two nights, is located about 2 hours south of Mackinaw City but the village of Empire is located about 30 miles west of Traverse City. So we had over 2 1/2 hours on the road early Wednesday morning but the kids were pros in the car by now. 2 1/2 hours was nothing! Charly watched another movie while Hayes chilled.

It was a good thing we switched our plans and visited the Sleeping Bear Dunes when we did. The sand was hot enough at 10:30 in the morning when the temperature was still cool. The kids were both a little apprehensive at first. The dune in front of them was intimidating, even to Kelli and I! We took lots of breaks and carried them most of the way. Charly could handle the climb for a while but the sand is so soft and with each step you take, your foot kind of sinks deep into the sand. It's exhausting pulling your feet out over and over and over. It was a weird feeling for her. Hayes, would try to climb, but get turned around and then would just plop himself down in the sand and play.

You can see in the pictures above, that a second hill is starting to creep into the setting. Once we finally reached the top of what we originally thought was the top, this second hill still seemed miles away! But we were determined . . . And we weren't the only ones taking lots of breaks. We weren't in a hurry. We had nowhere else to go!

We were stopped by tons of climbers on the way to the top, amazed that we had two children in tow. One woman in her sixties told Kelli she inspired her to complete the climb. She was going to turn back halfway up the initial climb, but instead, saw Kelli and wanted to keep climbing with her family. "If you can do it carrying a child, I can do it!" Our philosophy was, "When will we be back to do it again?"

After an hour or so we finally reached the top. Back toward the parking lot, was a beautiful view of the park and Glen Lake. Behind us, only visible from the top of the hill, was an incredible view of Lake Michigan in the distance. Kelli and I sat down on some stones and didn't want to move for a long time. Charly and Hayes found sticks and began digging in the sand. They were content too.

What took over an hour to climb, took maybe ten minutes to descend. Hayes insisted on being carried but Charly liked running down the dune. We saw kids diving and rolling. One boy wanted to roll down the entire hill, but was afraid he would hit us, so he waited. The impressive views of Lake Michigan and Glen Lake soon disappeared and the parking lot came back into focus. We were exhausted, but fulfilled.

It felt weird to be on solid ground. We visited a gift shop and purchased a couple books for keepsakes. The temperature was rising quickly so we decided a trip to the beach was what we needed to cool down. Plus, Charly was ready to build some sandcastles!

Day One: On the Road

When Kelli first suggested Michigan as a summer vacation destination this year, I was a little skeptical. Since Spring Break, she had been stuck on the idea of Myrtle Beach, SC and her idea of Michigan seemed out of left field to me. She talked about sandy beaches and clear blue water and my mind was registering an error. Michigan?

We had a one-week window of opportunity, the week after my summer classes ended. We began planning and I began researching and was pleasantly shocked. Come to find out, Michigan has a lot to offer!

Itinerary in hand, hotels booked, Denny and Carol's Honda Pilot locked and loaded, we set out north for Michigan at 8:30 am last Monday morning.

These are two of the few shots of Charly and Hayes sleeping on the 10 1/2 hour drive to Mackinaw City, MI. Denny and Carol's Pilot has a DVD player and they graciously offered to let us drive the vehicle. They were thinking of the storage and of keeping Charly entertained. It paid off huge in the end! However in 10 1/2 hours of driving, Charly slept for maybe an hour and watched 6 of the 8 movies we had packed! We need to upgrade vehicles now, because Charly won't know how to travel without a DVD player.

Hayes was a trooper! For a kid who can't sit still, he was an incredible traveler. We only had to really stop twice. He watched movies along with Charly. He took short naps. He played with toys and crayons. He dropped things on purpose and yelled until Kelli picked them up!

We swung off the interstate through Green Bay to catch a glimpse of historic Lambeau Field. Lambeau was a weird site. It's an impressively large NFL stadium, home of one of the most popular teams in the NFL, in a community of only 100,000 people, easily accessed right off an interstate, surrounded by nothing but parking lots and small houses. If the Patriots play in Lambeau sometime soon, I now know how easy it is to get to the stadium!

We supplied the kids with new snacks and drinks, put in a new movie, and hit the road out of Green Bay. The rest of the drive was awesome! I always envisioned driving south out of Cedar Falls, through Chicago, under Lake Michigan, and then up to the northern part of Michigan. But Mapquest and our GPS (named "Mandy") suggested starting north through Wisconsin and Michigan. This route was almost entirely along Lake Michigan. From Green Bay onward, Lake Michigan was just 20 feet or so outside Kelli's passenger-side window. Charly loved seeing the water. Iowa was all cornfield. Wisconsin all hills. Michigan was proving to be all trees and water.

We were excited to see some lighthouses on our trip and planned on seeing a few specific ones, but about an hour and a half away from Mackinaw City, we came upon the very small town of Manistique, MI and this site . . .

I really wanted to keep driving. But the kiddos were in desperate need of energy-release. So we stopped and let them run wild. The view was great, the sand was soft, but the weather was cold and windy! And the waves were crashing so hard we had to practically shout at each other!

Hayes found a stick (his favorite thing) and plenty of birds to point at (his second favorite thing) and Charly found plenty of rocks (her favorite things) so the kids thought the beach in Manistique was the coolest rest stop ever! We let them run and dig and we snapped some photos and before long, we hit the road again. The sun had shone itself and we wanted to cross The Mighty Mack before dusk. 

We pulled a nice couple aside and asked them to snap a photo of us. If it wasn't for the wind and Charly's Rapunzel-like hair, it would have been a great shot. In fact, most of the family pictures we asked strangers to snap for us turned out great over the course of the week!

We weren't thinking about a time-zone switch, so when we made it to The Mighty Mack before it was completely dark, we thought we were doing good. Once we crossed the 5-mile long beast of a suspension bridge, we realized we lost an hour of time traveling east! Instead of 8:30, it was 9:30 in Mackinaw City.

The Mackinac Bridge is the 10th longest suspension bridge in the world. In the US, it only trails the Lower New York Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco be a matter of mere feet. The total length of the bridge over water is 5 miles while the length of the longest span of suspended part (the part held up by suspension cable), is over 1.25 miles. We were excited and anxious to cross the bridge since it took us directly into Mackinaw City, the first stop of our vacation and was suspended over so much water. To tell the truth, the bridge wasn't the least bit scary, even though there was road construction taking place. With four lanes, you could hardly tell you were even going over water, but the two massive towers took our breath away as we passed under them. It was rather impressive.

 

We arrived at our hotel and gave the kids baths before bed. We ordered a ridiculously overpriced pizza as a late-night snack and hit the hay. Day one, over 11 hours on the road (including stops), in the books.