Great Lakes Adventure - Lake Michigan

Shannon planned an excursion for us to get away for a few days
and see the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.  I had heard interesting
stories about this place, way up north,  as Mark had been there as
a child with his family.  Now I was going to experience it for myself.
It was great to sit back and let someone else take the lead- she planned
the entire trip and did all the driving so I could relax and take lots of
pictures.  She had visited some of these places before and knew just
what we needed to see.  Other sights were new to both of us. Her goal
was for me to stick my feet in three of the great lakes: Lake Michigan,
Lake Huron and Lake Superior.  I would have to visit the other two
on my own another time.  I have actually seen Lake Erie before,
but never Lake Ontario.

The Great Lakes were formed by glaciers.  During the ice age
continental glaciers spread southward from Canada, repeatedly
burying this area under sheets of ice.  These massive ice sheets
carved out areas that that would become the deep basins of the
Great Lakes. When the glaciers melted, they left behind huge piles
of sand and rock debris and the interesting terrain of the Great Lakes
Region.  We would be covering a lot of territory in the next four days.

The first day would be our Lake Michigan day.  We traveled to the 

northwestern shore of Michigan's lower peninsula.  We went through 

Frankfort on our way to Sleeping Bear Dunes.

Sleeping Bear Dunes is hilly, with massive shoreline sand dunes.  It is

a diverse area with beech and maple forests, sandy beaches and bluffs

towering as high as 450 feet above Lake Michigan. On this particular day,

there also seemed to be lots of big black flies, who wanted to attack you at

each overlook.

The Indian legend says that long ago, in the land that is now Wisconsin,

a mother bear and her two cubs were driven into Lake Michigan by a 

raging forest fire.  They swam and swam, but soon the cubs tired and

lagged far behind.  Mother bear finally reached the opposite shore and 

climbed to the top of the bluff to watch and wait for her offspring. 

But the cubs drowned.  Today, "Sleeping Bear", a solitary dune in 

Michigan overlooking Lake Michigan marks the spot where

mother bear waited.  Her two cubs are the two Manitou Islands.

We drove the Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive which took us to some 

spectacular overlooks of Lake Michigan and Sleeping Bear Dunes.

The water is beautiful shades of blue and green.

Our next stop was Empire Beach, to  take a long walk, feel the warmth 

of the sand and get our feet wet.  We didn't realize until we returned to

our car that we had been walking on a private beach, which explained 

why we seemed to be the only ones on it.  Oops.

The rocks were so unusual.  I'm used to walking on beaches with 

shells, so these rocks were interesting to me. The water was so clear it

was easy to see the rocks.  I had to keep reminding myself that this huge

body of water that I was looking at, was a lake and not an ocean.

We spent the night in Traverse City, which boasts a huge Cherry Festival,

but sadly it isn't cherry season yet.  This far north, it is still late spring. 

Summer is a short season. Shannon says, "in Michigan, when you have

nice weather, people drop everything and get outside to enjoy it, because 

winter comes around again too soon."  We had dinner in a great restaurant, 

The Apache Trout Grille.  I would highly recommend it, but I forgot to take

any pictures, darn it.  I had a parmesan encrusted baked white fish with

mashed potatoes and a lovely spring mix salad with blue cheese, nuts and

craisins.   Yum!  This was my first encouter with white fish.  It's not something

you see at the fish counter in the south, but it was mild, tender and delicious. 

Key lime pie was dessert.   The perfect ending to a perfect day.

*Goal #20 - Walk on a beach.