Camping at the Dunes!

Before we left Michigan, we thought we should do something "Michiganny" so we went camping at the Warren Dunes. Growing up in Chicago, I actually came to the Warren Dunes in the summer with my family. When I came as a youth and learned that there were actually campsites there, I thought, "Boy, I'm glad I didn't have to camp!" Despite not being a big camper, it was still fun and the kids mostly loved it!


This is on our trek to the actual sand dunes from our car. The road that led to the main parking lot was closed so we had to walk a bit to get to the sand dunes. We We thought Marissa wouldn't be able to make all the way uphill so Ryan carried her and Devon. Little did we know that Marissa is actually a little sand monkey and could run circles around us while running up the sand dunes.

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Just for old times' sake I decided I would climb the main sand dune simply to do a back flip at the top down the back side, and to run down it really fast. Ryan stayed at the bottom of the hill with the kids. I got to the top and I looked down at them and I saw Ryan with his back to Marissa dealing with Devon while Marissa was halfway up the sand dune. I thought I would go down and meet her and help her all the way up if she needed it. I shouldn't have wasted my energy because apparantly, Marissa thrives in the sand. I don't even think she needed to stop for a break. It seemed liked everytime we took our eyes off Marissa she was darting across the dunes and we had to yell to tell her to wait for us.


Here's Devon kickin' in his camp chair at the campsite.


The next morning, we thought we would go on a little nature hike near the campsite. Things started out great, the kids enjoying it. Then all of a sudden, just as we were about to turn back to head to our car (so halfway only, mind you), we heard a loud crack of thunder. Five minutes later we were soaked through and needless to say, the kids were less than thrilled.


We convinced Marissa to call this our little adventure, our "hike in the thunderstorm" one. The next week Marissa wanted to talk to her Uncle Dan and the first words out of her mouth were "We went on a hike and we got poured on..." - not even a "hi" or "hello".