Sleeping Bear Dunes














Yesterday we visited Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.  It was a 40-ish minute drive to the west through some rolling hills and farms.  There wasn’t much traffic after getting out of TC.  

Our first stop was the scenic drive loop and the viewpoints were pretty packed.  We went to the Dune Overlook, found a spot and took a walk.  We decided not to walk the trail down to the lake.  One person said it took them 20 minutes to come back up, another who was in good shape said 16 minutes and a person training for some backcountry race said they made a personal best of 10 minutes.  Anyway, it’s hundreds of vertical feet of sand and small stones.  I guess we just missed someone running downhill turning themselves into a scorpion when they fell.  They eventually got up and slowly came back uphill.  

After the overlook we went to the main dune climb area and refilled on water.  We learned that the park is very understaffed this year so the little store wasn’t open.  I had done the climb in college and passed on doing it again.  It didn’t sound fun at 88*.  It was a bit cooler right by the lake.  

We took a little drive down to the town of Empire based on a recommendation.  It was really cute.  We parked away from the beach in free parking and then walked down to the water. It was a nice beach and it was pretty busy for its size.  It would be a great place to hang out on an off day.  

We came back to the campground, played games and then had some drinks with our neighbors until 11ish.  Great day.  

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