Sleeping Bear Dunes

This morning, it's Monday I think, the sunrise over Lake Michigan was beautiful. Our site at the D. H. Day Campground sits on a little wooded rise just South-West of the shore, just a short walk to the beach, and that beautiful sunrise. We'd arrived at 10:00am yesterday and the Ranger tipped us off to this site. Not only was it the best in the campground (#57), but it was opening up in just a few  hours.

Setting up the tent went quickly. Getting things in and out of the van, not so fast. There's just too much stuff to be able to arrange it so everything we need is accessible. After we set up the tent, explored around a little, and had gone to town to pick up food for dinner, we decided to go for a bike ride. Which meant more un-packing and packing of the van.

Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore is a long, skinny park along the western side of Lake Michigan between the towns of Empire and Glen Arbor, and including the islands of Little Bear and Big Bear. Most of the coastline is composed of sandy beaches and giant sand dunes. And by giant I mean hundreds of feet high. Along with several interpretive stops including a life-saving station and a maritime museum, Sleeping Bear Dunes also has a paved bike path running almost the entire length. During last year's visit we didn't have out bikes and I could only dream of riding that path. This year however, we were ready! And the path, coincidentally ran right by our already perfect campsite.

Once on our bikes we headed South. The path wound along through  oak and pine forests, open fields, bogs. Sometimes providing views through to the Lake, sometimes the Lake was blocked by the giant sand dunes. It was as nice a ride as I'd imagined.

Today, as planned, we're meeting up with Lyss in the morning, but there's a change of plans for the afternoon, and night. We like Sleeping Bear Dunes, and our site so much
we're staying another night. The weather is beautiful, there's more to explore here and we've got the time.

Rain happens

Today, our first full day of retirement, was to be our first camping day too. The plan was to drive 12 hours from Albany, NY to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Park on the coast of Lake Michigan, where we would pitch our tent. Sure a 12 hour drive was ambitious but the reward was a whole day to play in the park before catching up with Lyss in Traverse City on Monday.

We got a good early start at 5:00am. The weather was a warm 80+ degrees. The forecast was for rain, but the sky was clear and I-90 was wide open. S.D. and I took turns driving. First there was the four hours thru N.Y. and then the four in Canada. The terrain for the whole trip was flat and it was easy to see rain clouds South-West and North-West of us. We didn't run into any rain ourselves.

Until. Just as we were about to return to the U.S. the sky turned black, the temperature dropped 16 degrees and the sky just opened up. I crept into the shelter of the customs booth glad just to be out of the torrent and was genuinely sad when the agent let us go after only 2 easy questions. Seriously, did he not wonder why we had South Dakota plates and Massachusetts addresses? What about all that stuff in the van? Could we not have been smuggling illegal camping equipment and bicycles across international borders? Did we not arouse the least bit of suspicion? Not even enough to warrant questioning until this thunderstorm blew by? Apparently not.

Once back in the states however, we still needed to fill up and it was S.D.'s turn to drive. I checked the radar, and sure enough the forecast had been correct, nothing but rain between us and Sleeping Bear Dunes. Heavy rain, and 50 degrees temperatures overnight. Our first big tent pitch was less than four cold, soggy hours away. Have you ever set up a tent in the rain? It's not fun, and once it's up, it's generally not dry. And when it's cold, there's very little chance of it ever getting dry. Our first night could potentially be a cold, wet miserable night.

We'd been on the road 12 hours and were contemplating our fate when we passed the "Log Cabin Resort" just off rt 115, somewhere in the middle of the Michigan Mitten. I'd read about the "Resort" during early trip research and the reviews had mentioned that they had small, rustic log cabins, and an excellent shower facilities. The cabins would be as close to tenting as you could get and, even after 6 hours of rain, still be dry. S.D. did a 180 (Bruce actually has a decent turning radius) and we scored a sweet little cabin, the last available one they had. So now I'm typing this inside Cabin #1. Our first night of the adventure won't be in a tent, but it's a close, dry second and tomorrow when we pitch our tent at Sleeping Bear Dunes, it will still be dry, and there will be lots of time to play.