Sleeping Bear Dunes

So this brings us to yesterday. One of my nicest memories of visiting Traverse City is going to "the coast;" i.e. the coast of Lake Michigan. Which does look like the ocean in that there are waves and no opposite shore in sight...but does not resemble the ocean in that it is fresh water. And when I visited a year ago August, it really resembled more the Caribbean Sea. Sparkling turquoise water giving way to deep blue further on...white sand, everyone in bathing suits, swimming, enjoying the day.

So here we are yesterday, having a lovely sunny day and I'm thinking okay, time to go to the coast! Should we bring the bathing suits...

Imagine my surprise when we got to the coast and it was SO WINDY you could barely stand up! Poor Maggie was leaning into the wind, getting sand in her face, barely hanging in there...no one else was there, not a sunbather in sight.

Okay, so it was November 5.

Anyway, we enjoyed seeing Lake Michigan, snapped a few pics (see grass bending over sideways), and went north to Sleeping Bear Dunes.

Sleeping Bear Dunes are enormous sand dunes formed by glaciers a long time ago. There's this one in particular that goes 450 feet straight down to Lake Michigan. You can't even see Lake Michigan; it just looks like it goes off into nothing. A sign explains that it's EXTREMELY EXHAUSTING to climb back up if you happen to find yourself sliding down there. Mom and I decided to walk to the overlook a little ways beyond in lieu of an exciting descent to Lake Michigan.

A little ways along, there was a dune approved for climbing. Of course I had to test my mettle and climb to the top (I am that small speck of black in the picture). It really wasn't extremely exhausting, but then that dune wasn't as steep or long. So maybe someday...

We were surprised to see at one of our stops that Maggie had gotten completely wrapped up in the blanket in the back seat. I like to call this photo, "Obi-wan-canine-obi."