Sleeping Bear Dunes — YOFO Adventures

[Guest authors Travis and Jess recount our recent return to Michigan where they and Kady joined us for one our final “weeks of fun outside.”]

WOFO began, like many WOFOs, crammed in the back of a truck at 9:00 on a Sunday morning. Our first stop was to be Cuyahoga State Park near Cleveland, Ohio. We arrived and went through the usual campsite-setup rigamarole before heading out on an afternoon hike. We found three glorious works of art in the wilds: Blue Hen Falls, Brandywine Falls, and Visitors Center ice cream.

Blue Hen Falls was about as waterfall-y as waterfalls come: picturesque overhang, eroded basin, lots of trees. It was certainly worth the walk, but ended up being the only destination of much interest on that trail. Brandywine Falls had it beat in height and volume.

Guest authors Travis and Jess at Brandywine Falls

Ice cream and sparkling water, snack of the millennial champion

The greatest find of the day was random visitor’s center ice cream. Coming pre-packaged in little cups, it was rock hard and delicious. Our culinary adventures for the day concluded with grilled fish and asparagus, and the first (and second, and third) of many s’mores.

Every good campsite needs a Little Free Romance Library in the bathrooms

We continued on the next day to Sleeping Bear Dunes national park in Michigan. Since it was a longer drive, we got right to the relaxating and our next culinary adventure: killer, scrumptious, unbelievably-tasty random sausages found at the local grocery store. Boy howdy were those worth the day-long drive. It will be my perennial regret that we didn’t get to enjoy those sausages again before we left.

Bacon on the grill and cards before flapjacks

The next morning found us wolfing down pancakes and breakfast sausage before heading out to see the dunes. We enjoyed a leisurely driving tour of the park, and then a relaxing walk before jumping off a cliff.

Legend has it if you jump off the edge just as the sun sets on the summer solstice, you’ll have a long climb back up.

We should have known not to trust my dad and Dawn when they said “it’ll be an easy hike”. It began at the bottom of an endless mountain of sand climbing straight into the endless abyss of an unfriendly sky.

We knew there was a lake at the end of the hike, but it went on and on; every time my dad would say “you’re almost there, it’s just here over the rise!” we’d find ourselves somehow further from our destination. Minutes stretched on into hours, and hours into days. Against all odds, we found ourselves at the edge of an endless expanse of blue on a many-bejewelled shore. The water called to us in a crystalline voice, promising relief from the sandy specter of death. We just ate some sandwiches and drank the water we brought.

We continued our nature-ific adventures over the following days, kayaking down the Platte River to Lake Michigan (wildlife sightings included dozens of turtles, a muskrat, and a bald eagle) and hiking through a forest at the edge of the dunes. The proximity of forest to sand was incredibly surreal; it was simply forest one step, and Sahara-like sand dunes the next. Kady taught us her favorite walking game, What Are the Chances, and regaled us with a grand, improvised myth of the ancient princess who lived in those woods.

On one of our strangest culinary adventures to date, we stopped for cherry burgers at The Cherry Hut. Everything in the restaurant was cherry-themed, all crimson as blood. It really went hard for the Norman Bates brand of 50s aesthetic. Unfortunately the cherry burger wasn’t much more exceptional than a standard burger (a bummer, really, since the burger blend was probably 80/20 long-pig/cherry-pulp). The pie was worthy, and we enjoyed it that evening warmed up in the handy-dandy RV oven.

Our time in Sleeping Bear Dunes concluded with homemade chili and Frito pie, cornbread and salsa. We made a go of some imaginary adventure, playing one of my favorite tabletop role-playing games around the fire.

First time we've seen one of these!  Brilliant! — First time we've seen one of these! Brilliant!

We returned home with a few more hikes under our belt, a bit more sand in our boots, and a few more pieces of cherry-flesh (probably cherries) in our teeth. All in all, Sleeping Bear Dunes was fantastic. We all loved it, and Jess and I will certainly be back. Some of the hikes were tough, but it was all incredibly novel and weirdly beautiful. It’s a landscape plopped where it doesn’t seem to belong and we’re lucky we got to witness it.

Plus, the whole RV gig is insanely cool. I know what I’m doing when I have my midlife crisis, and it involves a whole lot of glamping and a big ‘ole house on wheels.

Sno-Balls? Sno-Balls? Sno Balls? Where's the fucking Twinkies? ... Oh, this twinkie thing ain't over yet.