Traverse City and Sleeping Bear Sand Dunes

Pretty, pretty, pretty!! After we left Chicago we drove around the coast of Lake Michigan and headed up north to Traverse City. Mikel and I had heard a lot about Traverse City and how great it is but hadn't been there yet. It was a beautiful city on the coast of Lake Michigan!

Mikel works with a friend who grew up in Traverse City and asked for a couple suggestions on where to eat in there and he only gave one suggestion- this is us at dinner at the North Peak Brewery and he was right! Delicious!!
From Traverse City we drove to Sleeping Bear Sand Dunes (another place we heard was a "must see").
It was!!

Also on the shore of Lake Michigan it is a HUGE park! These crazy (stupid) people were allowing their little baby play in the sand on the edge of this STEEP slope...
This sign is right next to where these people were sitting...
A lookout...
This is zoomed way way in on our camera and you can see three people WAY down at the bottom. It is soooo steep and the people already looked like they were struggling to get back up. Not a good idea...
An idea of how steep it is.

This is a dune that people are actually encouraged to walk up. If you walk up and over you can eventually make it to Lake Michigan, there was a lot of people walking up and running down this dune (a much better idea than the last people).
There was a little museum in this city/town with some cool boats. The people who settled here were originally in the lumber business but when that fizzled out and they did not want to leave they planted cherry trees and started a new business.
An old dug out canoe found on the shore.


This was definitely a cool town and there were so many hiking trails in Sleeping Bear Sand Dunes that we could come back and make a longer trip of it! FUN FUN FUN!

Unfortunately, on Tuesday we had to get up early and head back to town because school and work couldn't be put on hold forever!