Sleeping Bear Dunes

This past weekend Eric and I went up north to Sleeping Bear Dunes. I had decided I wanted to get away one last time before the baby comes! We drove up on Saturday morning and were able to enjoy the beautiful views without too much walking/hiking thanks to the scenic drive! We got to the top of the 450 foot dunes and were able to see quite a bit around us! The people down by the water looked so small! We had seen a lake that was formed by a sand bar at one point and decided to find it. The water was so clean and we were able to walk a ways around the lake and up a small dune that separated the lake from Lake Michigan.

After we were done with driving around in the dunes, we headed to Glen Harbor where we were able to visit an old Coast Guard station that has been turned into a museum. This picture is at the museum...Eric pretending to drive one of the boats :)

We then headed to Glen Arbor and found our hotel. We stayed at Fiddler's Pond, part of the Homestead Resort. Everything at our hotel was really nice and we had a wonderful pool area right behind our room, but unfortunately it was only in the 50's and was overcast, so we didn't take advantage of it! We still had a wonderful night exploring the area and finding dinner downtown Glen Arbor!

Sunday morning we headed back into Glen Arbor to find breakfast and do some shopping before heading back into Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. We found the area where the Platte River leads into Lake Michigan. Eric was excited to see this because he had gone tubing down this river with his family when he was younger. It was beautiful and the sun actually came out while we were there!

We continued our trip back towards home making several stops. We stopped at Betsie's Point and saw the light house there before continuing on to Frankfort. We walked around in Frankfort looking at some of the shops before getting some salt water taffy and ice cream! After leaving Frankfort we stopped at a lookout point on Lake Michigan right before we got to Arcadia. The view was beautiful from the lookout and we actually were able to watch the rain come across the lake. We managed to get back in the car right before it started raining!
We were going to stop in Manastee, but we didn't want to get caught in the rain and as we drove through the downtown area, we found that many of the stores were closed on Sunday and that there were many empty buildings. We decided to continue our trip home and made a final stop in Muskegon for dinner before making it home. We had a wonderful time together and were both glad just to get away for a couple days!