Traverse City and Sleeping Bear Dunes

About 20 minutes west of Traverse City is a very nice RV Resort called Indigo Bluffs. We were only able to book one night here’d (it books up in the summer) and really enjoyed it. In the morning we got up early and, before we left, drove just a few miles over to see Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, our 195th National Park site. We were excited to see this park because we had seen Eat, See, RV, a couple we watch on YouTube, climb one of the dunes and we really wanted to do it too.

“Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore gets its name from one dune in particular—the Mother Bear. Perched along the edge of the large dune that towers above Lake Michigan, this dune, at one time, resembled a sleeping bear. The Ashininaabek used the Mother Bear as a landmark and tell a story about how she came to be there.

Two different versions of the story are commonly told. These stories are an Anishinaabe (Odawa/Ottawa, Ojibway/Chippewa and Potawatomi) oral tradition of a sacred place within their homelands in the Great Lakes. 

Once, long ago, in the land called Wisconsin across the great lake, there was terrible hunger and many people died. A bear and two little cubs were trying to leave that place and come around the lake where there would be more food.

They walked for many days on the beach together, but after a while the two little cubs began to whimper with hunger, and so the bear decided to swim across the rest of the lake.

They waded into the water, one cub on each side of the bear, and they swam off into the lake a long way. After a while the cubs began to get very tired, and so the bear said, “Try hard, the land is not very far.” And very soon they did come in sight of land.

But gradually the cubs got weaker, and only ten miles away, one cub sank into the water. Soon after, the other also drowned.

The bear’s heart was broken, but she could do nothing. She waded ashore and lay down, looking out on the water where her cubs had died. Eventually, both of them came to the surface as two little islands, and so the bear still lies there atop the dunes, looking after her children.” – National Park Service

“Sleeping Bear Dunes is a perfect blend of dunes, beaches, and forests…Popular activities include exploring the stops along the 7.4 mile Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive, climbing the Dune Climb, hiking or biking through the woods, and swimming in the clear waters.” – National Park Service

Spots #9 and #10 along the drive are, in our opinion, the most scenic. This is the short walk from the parking lot up to the overlook.

When you get to the overlook you are greeted with this huge sign that warns people not to climb down to the bottom of the dune. This point was a few hundred feet up the shoreline at the bottom of the dune. In the picture below you can see a sailboat in the water. It looks like a tiny speck from up here.

Just a short walk to the right of the warning sign is the lookout over Lake Michigan. You can see Sleeping Bear from here although it no longer really looks like a sleeping bear, it just looks like part of the dune. In fact, I didn’t realize it was Sleeping Bear until I was reading about it to write this post. Here is a link with some old photos that show how it looked in the past.

Looking down from the top, this hill is very intimidating. I wasn’t completely sure I wanted to do this climb. But Joel was completely up for it and I didn’t want him to go without me. It was far more challenging than I expected and, now that it is over, I’m so happy Joel pushed me out of my comfort zone.

I started my timer at the bottom of this hill climb.

It took me an hour and two minutes to make it back up to the top. We stopped several times to drink water, and enjoyed a kind bar and the view about halfway up. The tough part is that every time you take a step forward in the soft sand you sink back about a foot. And there were no real foot or hand holds along the way. But, as I said before, we’re so glad we did this.

After we got back to our RV, we packed up and moved to the Holiday Park Campground in Traverse City. We had a great spot, backed up to the water, for two nights. Which gave us time to explore the wine trails near by.

I told myself my reward for hiking the dune was tasting some wine from two of Michigan’s Wine Regions, Old Mission Peninsula and Leelanau Peninsula.

Traverse City Tourism includes this quote on their webpage: “Located on the 45th Parallel, we literally line up with the most prestigious wine regions of Europe (think Bordeaux and Piedmont).” So we were excited to try the wines. Ummm, yeah, not quite the same as a Bordeaux, in our opinion. But they did make a very nice dry Riesling. And we met some very nice people along the way.

This huge piece of art was made entirely of corks.

We had a great experience and tasting at Mari Vineyards. Stacy was fun and gave us some good information about the wine they served there.

At our last stop, Brys Estate Vineyard and Winery, we sat on the patio and enjoyed some food with our wine. Sitting up here it was hard to believe we climbed that sand dune just hours earlier.

After leaving Traverse City we head south along Lake Michigan and spent our final night in Michigan at a Modales Winery, a Harvest Host.

We met another couple, Paul and Susan, who were also staying here in their RV that night. Bryan, the Tasting Room Manager, had suggested to them that the best place to stay is in the middle of the vineyard. So, we took the wine we bought, some bread and cheese, and headed out into the vineyard with them.

We had a great time and stayed up way too late talking and laughing.

The next morning we picked up our jeep from the parking lot at the tasting room and headed south out of Michigan.

We didn’t know what to expect and Michigan pleasantly surprised us at every stop along the way. We will definitely be back to visit.