Silver Lake Sand Dunes

The day we left for Silver Lake was supposed to be rainy and cold, so Nick & Stephanie stopped at MSU to spend some time with Bryce before they continued on and joined us at the campground.

We lucked out, though, and didn’t have any rain until the last 15 minutes of the drive – we were catching up to it, and Tom tried to slow down, but we still had a few minutes of rain.  We reached the RV Park, and by the time we finished checking in, the rain had moved off.  Good timing!

So, when I made our reservation, I was able to get one site for Mon – Thurs, and another site for Sat – Mon, but we had no site for Friday, and it was Labor Day weekend.  Tom was a little nervous, but I wasn’t too concerned – I thought it would all work out.  When we checked in, I asked the Asst. Manager if anything had opened up, and she told us that she was pretty sure she was going to have a site for us on Friday, and she even thought she might be able to move a couple people around and keep us on one site for our entire stay.  See – I knew it would all work out . . . and it did!

We got all set up on or site,

and went into town to pick up a few groceries.  It turned out to be a pretty nice day, and it didn’t rain again until evening.  Nick & Stephanie showed up around 7pm, and I heated up some dinner for all of us while we settled in and watched a movie.

The next morning was bright & sunny, so Nicolas went to the ORV Welcome Center to get the ORV stickers for the Jeep and his truck, and picked up his flag.  Once both vehicles were ready,

he and Stephanie gave Casey a bath.

She didn’t get a vote on that, and she wasn’t too pleased! LOL

We had some lunch, and then joined our friend Kathy, and her sister and exchange student, at the pool for the afternoon.  It was a beautiful day, and we had the pool pretty much to ourselves – it felt really good to soak in the sun!

After dinner, Nicolas was ready to hit the dunes, so we aired down the tires and headed up for sunset!

It was a quiet night on the dunes!  Test Hill was almost completely empty!

It had been pretty windy all day, so there was quite a peak at the top of the hill, and not much space for stopping.  We watched a couple people make attempts, and then saw a couple of ATV make it up,

Nicolas made his first attempt --

-- there were a lot of bumps at the bottom of the hill that made it difficult to get a good start – he got going, but let off the throttle a little too soon – didn’t have quite the momentum that he thought he had!

He had to roll back down backwards, but made it up on the 2nd attempt!

We took 2 tries in the Jeep, too, before we were successful!

From the top, you can see Silver Lake and Lake Michigan,

and then we continued on to the next series of hill – some of them even steeper than Test Hill!  After the hills, we followed Nicolas around through the trails,

and down to the beach (although there’s not much beach this year!)

The high water is really eating into the dunes!

Nick & Stephanie had to put their feet in the water . . . chilly!

Boys and their vehicles!

It looked like there was rain in the distance, and we could see a small rainbow over the dunes.  We thought it was moving towards us, but it never arrived!

We drove to the dune that overlooks Lake Michigan (a very popular spot for watching the sunset!), and found a place to park – along with the other half dozen vehicle that were out tonight . . . LOL!  It was a very quiet night on the dunes!

It’s a nice spot for enjoying the view . . .

and a great photo op!

We stayed until the sun dipped through the clouds and sank into the water at the horizon, and then headed back over the hills one last time before heading back to the RV!

It was a nice re-introduction to the dunes!