After a good night’s sleep in the hotel, we were refreshed and ready to head onto our next adventure!
While at the hotel, I had picked up a brochure for kayaking down the Platte river into Lake Michigan, and we decided we wanted to be brave enough to try it! However, instead of kayaking we also found a place that does tubing down the river right into Lake Michigan!
We chose Riverside Canoe Trips, although there were a few different companies that did the canoeing/kayaking/tubing down the Platte River into the lake. We left all our phones/cameras in the car so I didn’t get any pictures of the actual trip, but we had a blast!
They had a one hour ride or a two hour ride, and after some debating we decided to do the two hour ride. In hindsight, for Kiah’s sake, I wish that we had chosen the 1 hour ride, but the 2 hour one was still fine and we did all have a blast! The river moved at a pretty good pace and we could really just float down the river. It was a Sunday morning and there was a lot of people floating down the river, so we didn’t see any wildlife or have too many completely serene and quiet moments, but it was still beautiful and totally worth it! We would absolutely do it again (especially when our kids are a bit older!)
We rented three tubes- two with the hole in the middle and one with a filled hole. Tera rode in the one with the filled hole so she was essentially on a raft, and Theo and I took turns holding Kiah in the ones with holes. It worked out perfectly. We could have made do with just two tubes, but otherwise we would have both been holding a kid the entire time. They also had options to rent tubes for carrying coolers, so a lot of people brought drinks/food.
We realized upon arrival that there were NO STORES for miles of the Sleeping Bear Sand Dunes, and the restaurants were equally as sparse. Riverside Canoes had a general store with miniature sandwiches for $5 a piece, so instead we opted to buy a loaf of bread, a jar of peanut butter and a container of honey. We had some snacks left over from camping and we survived the day at Sleeping Bear Dunes with just that bread loaf and snacks.
The advertisements all said that the tubing trip ended right in Lake Michigan, but that wasn’t really true. You came around a bend and saw wide open skies and the makings of a lake, but then you had to drop off your tube and walk a quarter of the mile to the actual lake. Still, it was a gorgeous view.
Tera’s photography skills are improving greatly! Even if she chops off half our bodies and misses the entire Sleeping Bear Dunes in the background.
It was busy, but didn’t feel crowded. Probably because the skies and the lake are such a massive, wide-open expanse.
Don’t judge. This is what two and half hours of tubing, slathered in sunscreen at 26 weeks pregnant looks like:
Our tubing trip took us two and half hours, and we enjoyed our little picnic lunch afterwards, so by this point the kids were exhausted and Kiah especially needed a nap. It was a 30ish minute drive to the actual Sleeping Bear dunes, so we took advantage of the drive and Kiah took a little nap.
Next stop: Sleeping Bear Dunes Park!
The dunes are free to climb, but you need to purchase a $20 parking pass to park there. Thankfully, the parking pass works for any part of the park, and so it was well worth it to purchase and use at this dune and later when we went on the scenic drive!
These dunes are incredible…and you are hearing that from someone who grew up on the edge of the Sahara Desert! You pull up into the parking lot and there is just a massive dune. Once you climb the dune, there is a 1.5 mile walk to the Michigan shoreline. I’ve heard the views are well worth the walk, but that the walk is incredibly hard and isn’t any easier coming back! One day I would like to do the walk, but this stage of life was not that day.
Instead, we just opted to climb up the first dune.
There is something about this soft sand dune sand that just makes the kids want to roll around in it!
And so that is exactly what they did…
Love my explorers.
The view on one side is this lake, which is not Lake Michigan. Lake Michigan can’t be seen from the top of this first dune, since it’s still a good mile or so away.
This was the beginning of Theo’s brilliant idea…
Sand. Sand everywhere.
This was the middle of Theo’s brilliant idea, when the idea was downgraded to a good idea…
This was the tail end of Theo’s brilliant idea, when the idea was downgraded to a not-so-good idea…
And this was the end of Theo’s brilliant idea, when it was officially downgraded to a BAD idea…
But, they all survived and I bet the kids will still ask to be buried in sand the next time they encounter it! So maybe upgrade the idea to a good idea…
Just enjoying the view…
Time to run back down the dune!!! This is the BEST part of it!
As Theo and Tera ran down the dune, Tera tripped and FACEPLANTED into the sand. Theo said she had actual sand on her actual eyeballs. She didn’t cry at all, but there was nowhere to rinse off at the bottom except for one lone drinking fountain…
Thankfully, she was fine, but we were washing sand out of crevices for a few days after this trip. Lol.
At this point, we had been outside in the sun for about 8 hours that day, and we were all feeling exhausted and hot. However, I really wanted to see Lake Michigan from the dunes. We weren’t sure if this was possible, but we asked around and someone told us to take the scenic drive. We started off the scenic drive and were a bit underwhelmed. This was one stop on the drive, and while it was beautiful, I felt like we had already seen this and more from climbing the actual dune.
The Scenic Drive.
And then we pulled up on spot #9 and #10….and IT.WAS.ALL.WORTH.IT.
Theo and I have been traveled to many places in the world, and we both agreed that this was one of the most breathtaking views we had ever seen.
I know that the pictures don’t even come close to doing it justice, but we just couldn’t even take it all in. It was so beautiful and expansive and peaceful and breathtaking.
There were a lot of people there, but you could just tune them out and take in the view. I don’t know if I’ve ever experienced anything like that.
At this point Kiah had been up and outside for nearly 10 hours with only a 30 min nap and he was not feeling this gorgeous view of the lake. I handed him an apple and he was a happy camper. It cracked me up, seeing him walking along in his diaper and flip-flops, content with an apple and not caring about the view unfolding right next to him. It seems like there may be so many Christian parellels to pull from this. As we walked on a little bit further, we saw a woman sitting on the ground with a young child…the child was maybe 3 or 4 and was sitting, staring at the phone and watching a show. Ya’ll. I wanted to throw that phone into the lake!!!!!! Sure, the kid was too young to understand. I mean, I get it…my kid was, too. But that’s the whole point of parenting, isn’t it? Showing our kids the vast beauty of all that is around them, teaching them to notice and appreciate that they may never see a view this gorgeous again in all their lives! I don’t know, maybe I’m just judgy, but I really wanted that child to just stand up and TAKE IT ALL IN.
This view!!!
This man!!!
It’s hard to tell, but we were at the top of a near cliff. The cliff slanted down very steeply to the water below. There were many signs posted warning people to not attempt the climb down…as it was dangerous and would take a least two hours two climb back up. And then all those type B people who saw the sign said “challenge accepted”. You can see some of them in the very bottom left of this picture…they look like little bushes, but they are people on their hands and knees trying to climb up the dune. I knew that if Theo didn’t have a pregnant wife and two kids and had a few more hours in the day, he would have been one of those tiny dots. Meanwhile, the type A in me was all #nothanks.
We did not want to leave! So beautiful!!!
26 weeks pregnant at the Sleeping Bear Sand Dunes! What a vacation to remember!
We finally dragged ourselves away from the view and got back into the car to head back to my in-laws cabin. We stopped for some dinner on the way and did the ‘ol parenting bag of tricks to keep them awake long enough to get back home to their own beds.
We were tired, sunburnt, and ready for a low key day at the lake. But man, oh man…did we have fun gallivanting around northern Michigan!!!
The next day the kids didn’t sleep in (no surprise there), so we were up and at ’em for a relaxing day at the cabin with NO PLANS. It was lovely. By the end of the day, we decided we were more than ready to head back home and be back to the normal routine of things in our own beds, so Tuesday morning we packed up fairly early and headed home.
This was the first vacation that we have had as a family. It was really tough at. some points, but there were so many glimmers of what life will be like when our kids are a little bit more independent. It was so enjoyable to not have to carry ad diaper bag around everywhere, and we were *almost* able to go stroller free. While they struggled a bit with being off their routine, I think it was helpful for them to take a trip where they needed to be off their routine! Next time they will know and be able to expect how we do vacations…at least that is what we are hoping for!
Price Breakdown
$50 tubing
$10 food at tubing headquarters (this was the bread loaf, peanut butter & honey)
$20 park parking pass
$30 gas
$15 dinner
Total: $125