Shawn joined me in northern Michigan for a couple days -- I had a conference in Traverse City and flights to Michigan were cheap. Why not? One of the planned excursions was a trip out to the Sleeping Bear Sand Dunes. Like every kid who grew up in Michigan, I learned about the dunes in my seventh grade Michigan history class.
Legend has it that a mama bear and her two cubs jumped into Lake Michigan on the Wisconsin side. Because it was a long way across to the other side, the bear cubs soon tired and fell behind. When the mama bear made it to the Michigan shore, she lay down to wait for her babies. She waited and waited and waited....
Time passed, but the mama never gave up her vigil. She stayed on the shore, and the wind eventually covered her with sand, forming the dunes. If you stand at the top of the steep sand mountains, you can see where her cubs drowned -- two islands off the coast of the Lelenaw Penninsula mark their graves.
After some huffing and puffing, we made it to the top of the dunes. You can see Lake Michigan behind me, several miles in the distance. Rather than take the easy way down -- like we did when we were kids -- we took our time getting back. Shawn took off down one of the dune trails, tennis shoes in hand, and led the way through a labryinth of dune grass and brambles back to the parking lot.
Definitely worth the effort!
Dianne
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