Had our best hotel breakfast yet -- made to order omelets, fresh fruit, cinnamon toast, and Wolfgang Puck coffee! (Of course we did have to pay for it!)
Then got waylaid for an hour at a super rock shop in Traverse City. Seeking Petoskey stones, fossilized ancient coral in hexagonal grey/tan clusters. Radiant when polished! And copper, found here in rare, pure chunks. Native Americans traded it as far afield as Louisiana!
Finally made it 20 miles west to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. What a day of scenic play! First at a secluded beach below the dunes in Empire. What a happy scene of many families having fun! The air warm, water, too, and wind whipping up some lake waves! We did restrain ourselves and obey the sign:
Those are the 450' dunes far behind me. Which is where we went next -- to their top along Pierce Stocking Drive! Now we were gazing out at spectacular views of Lake Michigan, and down, down, down the near vertical dune face to the shore!
What appear as specks at the center of this photo are actually people, climbing back up the dune face after romping down -- a steep 2 hour ascent!
We on the other hand took the sensible approach, climbing up a different dune face until we were spent, then bounding back down with big steps in the soft sand! (again those "specks" are people!)
Yes finally time to seriously turn home ward. Drove through an hour of forested country side to the Interstate south. In Grand Rapids tonight, departing dear New England-like Michigan tomorrow.
Oh, the name of the dunes comes from Native American legend. A mother bear was swimming across the lake when her 2 cubs tired and stopped, forming the nearby Manitou Islands. Their mother for ever sleeps in the dunes awaiting them.
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