The short version of the recap is that we dug the camping and loved the park. Our last two nights on the island were nice, too, but we wouldn't want to be out there any longer.
For more details, I'm thankful that The Girl wrote a daily recap of each day's events. I warn you that this'll be a photo-heavy post, so I'm going to put it after the jump. Read on if you want to...
Saturday, July 9
Sleeping Bear Dunes is just shy of eight hours from West Chester (with only one stop to gas up and one at a rest stop), less than the eight fifty-one that Google Maps had threatened us with. We rolled into DH Day campground around one fifteen in the afternoon and took a look around for an available campsite (they don't offer reservations). Luckily there were a number of open spots, and we threw down at site #12. For $92 ($12 per night plus $20 for an annual park pass) we were set for our first six nights of camping.
If you were looking up that first trail, you might think that was poison ivy around the walkway to our campground.
You would be correct.
Once the tent was up and we were a little settled, we headed through the campground to find the Lake Michigan beach - about a ten minute walk through the campground. We took off our shoes and headed west toward Glen Haven (more about that town later) and took a look at the Cannery Museum (not much to mention) a mile or so down the beach.
From there we drove into Glen Arbor (the nearest commercial town - about two miles from our campground) to check out the sites. We would spend a bit more time here later, but for the first day we just looked around, hoping to find somewhere to buy towels and a couple of other things that we'd forgotten to pack. No luck, so we headed back to the campground to make a dinner of chicken, roasted peppers, rice, onion, and spinach. A pretty tasty dinner, at that.
I promise, we'd get better at not burning the crap out of the bottom of the pan. With nowhere to put our grey water other than into the campground roadbed, we'd have to.
Sunday, July 10
We'd thought about switching camp sites to #59 or 57 to be closer to the beach, but after a night in our more secluded location, we chose to stay our ground.
Breakfast was toasted bagels with butter - a poor attempt in the skillet/pot lid. Clearly we'd need to get a heavier skillet - which we did as we headed into Traverse City (about 45 minutes away) to get our resupplies that we'd forgotten (a cast iron skillet, towels, and a sieve for pasta). We walked around downtown Traverse and didn't have much luck, seeing only a three-block-long line to buy tickets for the Traverse City Film Festival. Apparently we'd also missed the end of the National Cherry Festival by one whole day as the festival detritus was being cleaned up around the waterfront park. We also missed eating at Cousin Jenny's (somewhere The Girl had wanted to try) as they're not open on Sunday. So we headed out of town a bit (more into the real commerce stretch) to Meijer where we picked up our needed supplies. We also got gas for $3.69 - far cheaper than the $4.13 we passed by in Glen Arbor that morning. After our shopping, we stopped into J & S Hamburg to grab burgers, fries, and a shake. Tasty burger, good fries, pedestrian shake, but no pics.
On our way back to the campground, we decided to stop by the Dune Climb, probably the biggest attraction in all of Sleeping Bear Dunes.
Photo from Leelanau.com
The Dune Climb is a 130-foot high sand hill that's been pretty thoroughly environmentally wrecked by all the constant climbing, but it's an absolute blast to climb and play in. At the top is plateau and another climb which then leads on a 3.5-mile hike to the Lake Michigan shore up and down a series of dunes. It's a strenuous hike and one that I'm glad we undertook at the beginning of the trip when we were still fairly fresh.
We progress over the dunes (and back) was exhausting but fascinating to see the flora (we didn't notice much macrofauna) that we don't ever see in this part of the country, particularly in such a large area.
I warned you this would be a photo-heavy post. Many of those photos of the flora were taken for Calen's benefit as she asked for photos of the dunes' progression from lake inland. There are a bunch more I didn't post, Calen. I'll get those to you eventually.
After the hike we returned back to camp, took a few ibuprofins, and headed to 'ice' our legs in Lake Michigan. Dinner was silver turtles cooked in the fire coals (the only meal we had without the Whisperlite Internationale) and was followed with s'mores using Homewheats - strongly recommended as it's easier than bringing along chocolate and grahams separately. Amazingly, we used 'campfire sticks' we'd bought at Meijer because we were a little worried about the ivy-tinged sticks around our campfire.
Monday, July 11
We woke up to sprinkles and decided to head into Empire for breakfast. Once we got into the car, the pounding rain reassured us on our decision. We checked with the Sleeping Bear visitor's center for guidance. They had no idea what showers in the Platte River campground cost, but the guy was able to recommend Joe's Friendly Tavern for what turned out to be a tasty breakfast (with homemade sausage) and a menu that tempted us enough to come back for lunch.
The rain stopped, and we headed to the Platte River campground (about thirty minutes from our campground but still within the park) to take advantage of their pay showers after a little hiking along the Lasso Loop Trail. This hike was far less worth mentioning as we pretty much spent the time swatting bugs and wondering what the big deal about the loop was. We did get a nicely varied terrain from Great-Lake-side dunes to more typical midwestern beach/maple forest to some pine even, but the trail isn't one we'll take again. There was nice moss bordering much of the trail, but other than that, meh.
The showers were much more well appreciated and cost $1 for six minutes of hot shower time, not long enough to daydream but certainly enough to get a body clean. From there we headed back to Joe's to try their (as their menu said) amazing burgers. Supposedly they grind the meat fresh daily and have received raves from newspapers all over Michigan.
We weren't impressed, and I'm glad we split the burger because it was overpriced for the quality. The shipped-in sweet potato fries weren't worth the $1.25 upcharge, either.
After lunch we took the Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive which was a gorgeous survey of most of the park's varied environs. There are twelve stops along the curvy trail, and we hit them all (except Cottonwood which is a trail head, and we came back to that a few days later). Especially fascinating were #2 (Glen Lake overlook)...
...#3 (Dune Overlook)...
#6 (leaving the sand dunes - gorgeous tree roots)
and especially #9 (Lake Michigan overlook) and #10 (Sleeping Bear dune overlook)...
From the Scenic Drive we went back to the campsite to make dinner and just do some reading to settle in for the evening. Dinner was pasta with sliced sausage, onions, and tomatoes...
That's probably enough for now...I'll keep rolling along tomorrow...
3 comments:
All I've got to say from this wealth of pictures is...
...a Padres shirt? Really?
My sister brought that back from an NEA conference in San Diego a few years back. It's an awesome, heavyweight shirt. It would be a bit much if the temps hadn't stayed in the 70's on those days, though.
Picked up up cause I liked the old school logo on it Sully. The conference was literally next door to where they played (and where they hold Comic-con every year).
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