We drove from the Marzinski Trailhead to the southernmost part of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. Like Indiana Dunes, Sleeping Bear spans miles of lakeshore with lots to see and do as you pass through the park. We started at the south end, with a hike from the river access area through the forest to the dunes and the lakeshore. After seeing all the sand at Indiana Dunes, we thought the pretty sand and big dunes were a feature of the south side of Lake Michigan, but found that big dunes also occur on the east side of the lake. Like Indiana Dunes, on the mile from the parking lot to the lakeshore we passed boggy ponds, went though multiple types of forest, and then came out to the dunes and the lakeshore. Dogs weren’t allowed on the beach because the beach is a piping plover nesting site, but Tom and I took turns holding the dogs while the other walked to the water.
After that hike, we continued north to see the biggest dunes in the park. They’re big! People were climbing them and rolling down the hill, and some were continuing towards the lake which was about a mile and a half away. Neither of us really like the sand, so we passed and took a few photos from the parking lot before continuing towards the north section of the park.
The north part of the park is more about history and less about dunes. We stopped in the village of Glen Haven, which is constantly in the process of being restored. Much of the area where the park now is was settled by a man named D.H. Day, and Glen Haven is a village he founded. While a few people live there, it’s mostly a living history museum of reconstructed buildings, and some still in the ongoing process of reconstruction. You can see the remains of the pier where the big boats would dock, and the canning factory has been converted into a boat museum. The Sleeping Bear Inn is currently being renovated to become lodging for park visitors. The old general store is now a park store, and the blacksmith shop is a working blacksmith shop that creates whatever metal is needed for projects in the entire park. We walked through the village and talked to the volunteers manning the buildings. We couldn’t help but compare this village to Pullman, since both George Pullman and D.H. Day had similar visions of creating a community where people could work and live. However, their implementations varied tremendously, and from what we read and heard, it seems like the Glen Haven residents were actually happy to live and work there. D.H. Day actually built himself a grand house for his family on his farm a few miles south of the village, but neither he nor his wife wanted to move from their apartment above the general store since they liked the companionship provided by the people in town.
After letting the dogs play in the lake, we drove through the rest of the park which was a farming community. We thought about spending another day in the park, but at some point in the afternoon we had looked at the weather map and realized winds were supposed to pick up the next afternoon, and we wanted to get over the Mackinac Bridge in good weather. The truck’s suspension has been much better since the work done on it in Missouri, but driving a sail over a 5-mile suspension bridge in high winds didn’t sound like a lot of fun. We drove to Traverse City, which is about and hour and a half from the bridge, and parked at a Walmart for the night. We set the alarm so we’d be up early enough to get over the bridge well before the winds started in the afternoon.