WOOHOO! Sleeping Bear Dunes in Northern Michigan along the coast of Lake Michigan has been voted the Most Beautiful Place In America on a Good Morning America contest.
"Tens of thousands of viewers voted online for this Michigan park, which is one of the nation's best-kept secrets," GMA said.
"The hidden gem boasts 64 miles of beaches along Lake Michigan, two islands, 26 inland lakes, more than 50,000 acres of land, and the monumental sand dunes from which it gets its name."
People have GREAT taste.
My family went to Sleeping Bear Dunes last year and camped for a week, and the kids have been talking about it ever since. The National Park campground cost us all of $12 per night and it was clean and well maintained. Let's hear it for our National Parks system.
We swam in the clear, bright waters of Northern Lake michigan and dove for soft rounded stones. We watched the sun set over the Manitou islands and spread a blanket out on soft sand and watched a meteor shower come out of the clear Milky Way above in the dark night sky. And of course we walked right up to the edge of a massive sand dune that seemed a sheer drop off...walk to the edge and there's no ground, just sand that obscures all sense of scale and distance and water. If you take a leap of faith though, and jump over the edge, you'll realize that it's an incline and you're perfectly safe. Though the climb back up is arduous.
Sleeping Bear Dunes is named after an ancient Native American legend based on a dune formation, and the Manitou Islands
Long ago, along the Wisconsin shoreline, a mother bear and her two cubs were driven into Lake Michigan by a raging forest fire. The bears swam for many hours, but eventually the cubs tired and lagged behind. Mother bear reached the shore and climbed to the top of a high bluff to watch and wait for her cubs. Too tired to continue, the cubs drowned within sight of the shore. The Great Spirit Manitou created two islands to mark the spot where the cubs disappeared and then created a solitary dune to represent the faithful mother bear.
I'm strutting around all puffed up with pride about this. As you know, I'm a huge lover of the Great Lakes and I'm wildly proud that the region is getting some recognition of its beauty. Places like this is why people are madly in love with this region. Madly in love.
Cross Posted from Muskegon Critic.