Little River Casino Resort and RV Park, Manistee, Michigan
Jesus replied: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” Matthew 22:37-39
Two hours of flying over sand dunes proved to be an excellent way to continue celebrating our 40th!
We had first talked about doing this a couple of weeks ago. Silver Lake State Park is the only dunes in Michigan that allows driving. You can rent various vehicles from local businesses or you can drive your own. Driving our Jeep sounded fun at first, but then we came to our senses and realized we really should rent if we plan on enjoying ourselves. In addition to worrying about the condition of our Jeep (especially since it’s our only transportation!), there were all these things we’d have to buy before we could go out – like a regulation orange flag and a permit, for starters.
After getting ourselves all excited about this, imagine how our hearts plummeted when we discovered that everyone was closed for the season!
However, after researching a while, my white knight managed to find one open place! They had several things to choose from, and we settled on a two seat Polaris Rzr with a 1000cc engine. And there are no windows. That little tidbit will become important later.
We arrived in town early, so we took the opportunity to park at the State Park and check out a small portion of the Dunes. Waaaay cool!
The abrupt end of the road!
What stairs?
Seems time and sand have buried most of them!
It was quite a climb, in deep loose sand.
Whew! I was puffin’!
Fortunately, it was a much easier walk once we got up here. The sand was pretty firm.
Lots of videos today!
They have areas designated for driving and for pedestrians.
Currently, we’re on the pedestrian side, but over there’s where we’ll be driving soon!
We’re soooo excited to get going!!!
I thought this looked like snake tracks. Blaine doesn’t agree.
I Googled, the results were inconclusive.
You’ll have to draw your own conclusion. : )
That’s the way back to the Jeep. No signs, just follow the foot indentations in the sand.
Then it was time for our reservation!
This was a “can’t miss” view as we drove from the Park to the rental place.
After signing all the papers that say they’re not responsible if you do something stupid and get yourself maimed or killed, and that you are responsible if you do something stupid and damage their equipment, they load you up in a pickup, and put the Rzr (or whatever) on a trailer and off you go to the State Park.
They rent for two hours, and at first, we didn’t think that sounded very long – especially considering what we paid for the privilege. But once we were out there, we knew two hours was plenty.
Heading out to the dunes
Here we go!
At some point as we were getting started, Blaine acquired a scrape on his lowest thumb knuckle and shed blood in several places – fortunately none got on his new shirt!
The Polaris has a top speed of 60 mph. Blaine said that he saw 55 a couple of times on the speedometer, that’s really fast scooting along the sand.
They told us to stay out of the water because some of these “puddles” are really deep, so it’s best to just avoid them.
We did.
Well, except once when I caught the edge of one as I was driving.
It was either that, or hit a tree, so what would you do?
Blaine started out driving, but after our first go-around, he turned it over to me and I drove for about 40 minutes! Oh, what fun it was to ride!!
My turn!!
He offered several more times, but I declined because it started getting busy out there and I just wasn’t comfortable driving crazy (like I wanted to) plus looking for orange flags. I’m also shorter, and that makes it harder to see over the dunes – – and reach the pedals. 😊
This pick up kinda put a damper on things for a lot of us who wanted to drive recklessly.
They were just tooling around slow as molasses and you never knew when they’d appear in your way.
There were several of these holes in this one area.
They call them ‘tornadoes’ and they’re formed by the quads spinning around and around inside.
This is why you don’t drive your personal vehicle around the dunes . . .
They were stuck there the entire time we were out. No help in sight.
According to our driver, if they have to call for help, it’ll cost them big bucks – like 4-5 hundred dollars big!
We played ‘follow the leader’ for a bit and discovered some new places!
No one was driving in this area.
We soon discovered why – – too many obstacles!
A slight breeze kicked up and even that little bit was covering tracks.
This shows where the sand has blown over.
As we were nearing the end of our time, Blaine hit a small dune that hit the front end just right, sending sand flying back onto us – – – and into my open mouth. No windows, remember? Blech!!! Blech!!! And Triple Blech!!! There was a lot of spitting by yours truly, and we stopped to take a drink (we brought water along) – and a few swishes. Still worth it!
We pulled into the pick-up spot, just as our transportation arrived. Perfect timing! We had more fun here than we’ve had for a long time – – and that’s saying something!
The day was still young and there was a lighthouse close by. But first – – lunch.
This guy hung out with us.
Just before we left, the wind blew a piece of cracker his way and he pounced as he expressed is profuse thanks. ; )
Little Sable Point Lighthouse was a fun little stop and another place we remembered visiting previously, once we saw it. However, when we were here before, you couldn’t go to the top and there were much fewer people around.
Going up . . .
Painting of when the light was painted white and the keeper’s house was still intact.
This one’s a photograph
Can you imagine the time and effort it took to remove all that paint??
Our friend Jeannine, grew up in the nearby town of Hart and had volunteered her Uncle to give us a history tour, however, since we could only rent the Polaris on Monday, and it was over an hour drive from our campground, we were unable to take advantage of his generosity. ☹
The Historical Society and even the Visitor Center were closed today. : (
Isn’t this barn great?!?
We texted her once we arrived in town, and she told us that when they moved the church to it’s new location, her Dad did all the stone work! (not the bricks, the stones) How cool is that! We’ve met her parents in the past – – great people!
This is the church they moved.
There’s the stone work.
Nice Job!
We didn’t care for the signs they had up.
This is the best I could do for photos, and we couldn’t even read it, let alone take pictures, so I have no information, other than Jeannine’s Dad did the stone work.
This sign looked a little better.
The Mill
This is the side of the mill.
Blaine pressed his phone up against the window of one of the other buildings and found this!
They seem to be working on restoring this.
We have no idea what this was . . .
or this . . .
Our tour wasn’t nearly as interesting as it could have been, but we still enjoyed walking around.
Oh look!
Our Friend’s House! Hahaha!
We liked the look of this building.
Great idea!
In the Hart Commons
An interesting looking church . . .
I don’t know if anyone lives here, but their house is being taken over by foliage . . .
Another celebratory day has come to a close. Tomorrow’s a designated “down day”. We need it!