Down By The Dunes

"So how do you and your brother Mac like it down by the dunes?". That's what Will Ferrell asked Rae Murphy (Molly Shannon) in a Saturday Night Live skit once. The dunes are amazing!

The western part of Michigan along Lake Michigan has miles and miles of large sand dunes. It can take you up to 3 hours to walk to the water in some of the largest places. I went with 2 people from work yesterday to Silver Lake Dunes. We met another mutual friend at a campground since they were staying for the whole weekend. We all decided to rent Jeeps for 3 hours and drive all around the dunes. The experience was pretty interesting. The dunes were packed with all sorts of 4-wheelers, dirtbikes, big foots, and some people in random SUV's driving all around the dunes. Take a look at these pictures. I made sure to document the whole dune experience.




We did have a little mis-hap though. At the peak of the dunes, there is a steep drop off from where the wind blows the sand to the peak, and then it levels back out. If you're going really fast, you'll jump the peak and bottom out. That happened to us. Another Jeep also did this, but they did it so hard they went airborne. There was a representative from the rental company out watching all the rental Jeeps and he stopped us and told us we were not on a baja-trip, but a tour and to cool it. He said this was a warning and if he caught us again we'd loose the deposit. So that put a damper on things. After that we didn't really drive much more, so we walked along the beach on Lake Michigan and watched people climb up the really high dune.

This past week at work was very annoying and frustrating. I'm ready for a vacation...a long vacation.