Little River Casino Resort and RV Park, Manistee, Michigan
Therefore God exalted Him to the highest place and gave Him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee would bow, in heaven and on the earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Philippians 2:9-11
Today was another one of those days that involved a number of stops, as we headed north along the western Michigan coastline. Because there are so many stops, and because I’m tired and lazy today, and because it’s how I happened to make my notes, I’m using a numbering system. So here we go!
- Peaches – we passed a yard advertising peaches and apples. Such a wonderful smelling place! They had large buckets and baskets filled with fruit, but no individual ones. We have no need for a bushel – or a peck 😊 – of either, so I asked if we could just buy a few. The younger of the two men told the older one, “Give ‘em six or eight for three bucks.”, and walked away. So I picked eight out of an ‘overflow’ basket and dropped them into the plastic bag, Blaine paid the man, an off we went. I’ll tell you now – – they tasted really good! Nothing like those hard store-bought ones with no smell or taste!
- Acadia Overlook – this was a nice roadside stop. At first, we didn’t realize you could go even higher! Once we discovered the steps, up-up-up we climbed! I think there were at least 60 steps, but worth every one!
There were several sailboats out there today!
Guessing game – –
What is it?
3. Baldy Dune – this one required a bit of hiking to get to, but once again – – Oh the views!
Quite a bit of the trail was on this elaborate boardwalk.
Sure makes for easy hiking!
For some reason, I don’t have a picture of “this platform”. Probably Blaine and I both thought the other took the picture. : ) Anyway, the views later are much better!
It wasn’t all boardwalk, though. : )
And then there was the sand trail. . . .
Did you notice?
It’s warmer now – – or maybe it’s just a hot flash . . . .
Blaine took a terrific panoramic picture here, but for some strange reason, I’m not able to upload it to the website. I’m very sad about that . . . It looks like a large tan bowl of beautiful cereleon and emerald water. : (
Did you look close enough to find Blaine?
If you did, you’ll notice he’s standing on the fence . . .
That boy. Always climbing on stuff!
I had to stop and check out the other side of our trail on the way back . . . : )
The sun was shining through the trees now and I just had to snap a shot. Of course, it doesn’t look as beautiful as it was . . . Sigh . . . .
4. Gravity Hill – the lady we met at the Manistee Visitor Center told us about this. It was also included in a piece of literature we picked up there. She told us, with a sparkle in her eye, how cool this place was. You go to a certain spot, put your car in neutral and it would back up a hill all by itself. Sounds great doesn’t it? Not so great. First of all, we had some trouble finding just the right spot. The hill was so slight, who were we to say we were going uphill? My personal opinion? I think it’s a trap to lure people to visit the Blaine Christian Church on the corner. 😊
You thought I was kidding about the name, didn’t you? Ha!
This old barn was on the other corner.
We love old barns, but usually we’re driving down the road when we see them and can’t stop to take pictures.
5. Blaine Township Hall – Who knew Blaine had so many things named after him?? We went looking for the actual Hall, but only found this plywood-type brown building that may or may not have been the Township Hall. But the sign at the street was nice! So nice, I made Blaine park so I could run across traffic to get the picture. And run back. He was concerned about me crossing, but it was only a two-way road and not much traffic. I think he was more concerned that I wouldn’t look both ways . . . : )
6. Elberta – we ended up just driving through this small town. There wasn’t anything interesting we could see from the road, nor was there anything in the book we had, so we didn’t stop.
7. Frankfort – this small town was nice. It was lunchtime, so we drove around looking for a good spot, and discovered their lighthouse. It was a great place to stop!
Well, there’s something you don’t see pass you at an intersection every day!
There were supposed to be “brightly painted Victorian homes” on this street, but we didn’t see any.
And there’s our lunch view!
Beautiful sky!
As we were eating, we noticed people walking out towards the lighthouse, only they’d go about half way, then turn around. After lunch, we decided to go check it out. And got our feet wet, because we didn’t turn around. 😊 Turns out, this lighthouse looks better from a distance . . .
Look at the difference on either side of the wall!
This is about where people were turning around.
Now we know why – – they didn’t want to get wet!
Walking the gauntlet . . .
Leaping through the water on the way back.
Didn’t help . . .
8. Point Betsie Lighthouse – it’s a pretty lighthouse! And there were quite a few people milling about. The lighting was good for the front. Not so great in the back. And the second I saw it, I remembered being here 5-6 years ago when we vacationed up the west coast of Michigan!
See that stick with a silver hook up in the ceiling?
That’s the “shorting stick”.
As you can imagine, it took us a while to locate it. If Blaine wasn’t an electrician and knowledgeable about such things, I don’t think we’duv ever found it. : )
Seems this is one of those lighthouses you can stay at.
We’re pretty sure we’ve never seen a tree with leaves like this one!
They’re green on one side and pure white on the other!
It was breezy, so they were mostly white.
I love this picture I took!
This is the fog signal building. See the horn sticking out the front?
We can’t remember where we took this picture. It was about 10 minutes after the last lighthouse picture, and a half hour before the next one. . . .
9. Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive – this drive is inside Sleeping Bear Dunes National Park, and contains several overlooks and trails. Because we bought a National Park Annual Pass last September, we were able to get in for free. No more freebees until we decide to purchase another.
Most of the 7-mile drive looked like this.
That’s Glen Lake
We wanted to walk a bit, so we chose the Cottonwood Trail. It was a lot of sand, but great views! We had to dump our shoes and socks once we returned, just to fill them up again at the next and final stop. One more tidbit – this drive is a one-way road, and we passed the same walking lady 3 or 4 times along our way. 😊
Interesting!
I know you can’t read all this, the glare was just too bad for me to fix, but I think you’ll get the gist of it.
They’re doing some work at the beginning of the trail, we had to go around through a section normally marked “Keep Out Restoration Area”.
Still a pretty sky!
We’re headed out there somewhere . . . .
This is a long loop trail. We opted to go left to right, which means we decided at the last minute not to go this way.
Boy, did we choose correctly this time!
Instead of the loop through the “desert”, we walked out and back.
It’s just plain warm! Know how you can tell? My hair’s in a ponytail now. I’m sweating, too, but you can’t tell that. : )
That’s Glen Lake over there.
And there’s THE lake!
Lake Michigan, complete with a freighter!
We got sorta close, but didn’t go all the way over.
It’s time to go back.
Along this drive, there’s also a Lake Michigan Overlook. Spectacular!! Especially today on this gorgeously perfect day!
That’s the platform that’s 450 feet above Lake Michigan. We’ll be there soon, but right now it looks really crowded . . . .
The way down . . .
There’s some crazy people down there. 450 feet down there. Well, a little less now that they’re on their way back up.
You know, going down and being down looking up would be great.
But that climb back up?
When it’s warm . . . and the sun’s shining . . . and it’s sand you’re walking in, that keeps slipping and sliding . . . ?
No way, Hosea!
Notice they had to sit down already . . .
Still a bit crowded, but we’ll just have to push our way in there. : )
Silly me! I thought I could look over the top of the sign and actually see something that looked like a bear curled up.
By the way, that’s one of the islands you’ll read about soon in the background.
My understanding?
This is what the dunes used to look like – with trees and brush on it.
This is what it looks like now.
This shows some who’ve almost made it back up.
The other couple is still sitting.
10. Sleeping Bear Dunes – This place, not a part of the scenic drive, brags of a 110-foot dune that nearly everyone climbs. It’s pretty soft, despite the massive amount of foot traffic, so by the time you get to the top, your shoes are full of sand. I noticed a lot of people leave their shoes behind. You can see a lake – a really pretty one – once you reach the top, but not THE lake. For that, you have to hike the dunes for about a mile and a half. It’s hot, but today it’s about twenty degrees cooler than the summertime heat! Then, after you’ve seen THE lake, you have to hike another mile and a half to get back to the top of the dune so you can walk, run, slide, roll or tumble down it to a picnic table where you dump massive amounts of sand onto the ground at the base of the dune, before you can climb back into your car.
The 110-foot climb to the top.
We’re actually going up the side because we were looking for a dead tree we took Blaine’s picture in the last time we were here, but it’s gone. : (
Silly boy!
Part way up.
We made it!
We stumbled (almost literally!) across a sand castle!
With all this sand around, how can you tell?
Looking back from the start of the trail.
Celebratory cheer!
We made it!
That’s the end of the line for us.
I walked a little further to get the picture. : )
This is what Blaine could see from up there.
This is the stand of trees where he was. We took a little respite in the shade.
There really are some flowers around here!
And lots and lots and lots of sand!
Look at this double exposure Blaine captured!
We have absolutely no clue how that could possibly happen!
He also took two other panoramic pictures up here, but neither would upload. Maybe the file was too large? I know one of them was almost 360 degrees.
I wanted to try sitting halfway down the hill and take a picture.
Didn’t turn out quite like I’d envisioned.
Plus, I’m squinting.
Another sand sculpture we almost stepped in on the way down!
Good times! Lots of sand.
Trivia answer? I put my phone’s camera up against one side of the binoculars. Not the desired effect, but still a pretty cool picture. 😊