Michigan - Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore

During COVID, Angee, Matt and I decided to do a road trip around Lake Michigan. On the day of our visit to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, we headed out of our campsite and went through Traverse City. Normally, this is a bustling tourist town, but since we are in the middle of a global pandemic, and this was day 4 of a camping trip, and we weren’t exactly sweet smelling, we didn’t stop at too many places to browse. We did stop at the Petoskey Pretzel company and had some amazing pretzels though! Angee’s had cinnamon and sugar, Matt’s was plain and mine was like a mozzarella marinara, but instead of a wonton, the cheese was wrapped in pretzel!! YUM

We headed to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. A quick stop at the visitor center was helpful, but because of Covid, no movies were being shown. The ranger told us that the thing to do would be the dune hike, so that’s what we did. Parking at the dune hike was easy, and in front of us was a moderately sized dune that looked difficult but doable. About 20 feet into the hike, I realized how difficult walking in soft sand is and my assessment of the hike changed. Once on top of the dune, I also realized that was just the first phase. There was about another mile and a half of dune hiking. Angee, Matt and I went to a spot where we could see Lake Michigan but turned around there – we weren’t prepared for miles of dune hiking!