After saying good-bye to our cousins, we headed to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore to set up camp. It took us a while to find a campsite, but when we did we set up camp in a jiffy. My mom wanted to walk down to the beach so we headed down there and Wil-e claimed his own island.

We cooked herb and butter chicken for dinner with some popcorn for dessert. My mom started reading the sequel to Hatchet but Wil-e fell asleep so we all went to bed around 11:00. The next morning we woke up and went into town to stock up for the winter on groceries and grabbed some breakfast. Then we went to the big Sleeping Bear Dune for a hike; little did we know that it was about three and a half miles to the water and the sand was like five hundred degrees. We had to turn around about halfway, but running down the dune was really fun.

After shaking all the sand out of my pants, we stopped at a place known as the Cherry Republic, where they made cherry everything. We tasted all of the sodas they had, the original cherry being our favorite. We also got some ice cream and floats, which were killer, and took some sodas and sour cherry candy to go. We went on a scenic drive after, which was really cool, then we headed back so my parents could go for a run.After the run, my dad jumped in the lake while my mom just waded; she just is not the polar bear that I am.

Finally, we feasted on tacos, cherry soda, Oreos, and popcorn, then listened to three more chapters of The River, the sequel to Hatchet, before heading to bed. When we got up we decided to get on the road as fast as possible and started moving as soon as we finished packing. We stopped for breakfast at Potter’s Bakery in Traverse City, which has some awesome, well, everything, and headed toward Mackinaw City. We stopped in St. Ignace at Clyde’s (old school) Drive-In for lunch, before heading to our destination, Cedarville, MI; it’s on the northern shore of Lake Huron.

We had some great Italian food at Ang-gio’s for dinner; I highly recommend trying their meatballs. After dinner, we drove to the shore chasing the sunset, but we found ourselves on the wrong side of the trees. The lake is amazing though. And we saw these majestic swans.

Tomorrow, we get to explore Mackinac Island. So far, Michigan’s UP is pretty cool and has some good eats.