When I decided to plan the Napping Bear Sandbox staycation, I took suggestions from various websites on what to do while we were up at Sleeping Bear Dunes and Traverse City. Here's what we did instead.
- Take the Sleeping Bear Dunes Driving Tour
To start our Napping Bear Sandbox vacation, we began by taking a virtual tour of what might have been had we gone to Sleeping Bear Dunes. This was available
here, and I was relieved to see mostly unremarkable pictures of trees and roads and picnic tables. (The sand dunes would have been cool to see in person, but we've been to Warren Dunes and Painted Rocks, so it was probably okay.)
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| There are sand dunes in the distance. That's all. |
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| Lake Superior at Painted Rocks. |
Joseph had already scaled some dunes in the sandbox when some cool new kids moved in and immediately followed the injunction in 2 Nephi 29 to "dig a pit for thy neighbor [to play in]"
But we had some hiking to do, so we decided to hike around the art festival the day of Kevin's defense. We were lucky that a storm had cleared the air so by the time we got there the weather was perfect. It didn't even feel like we were hiking! (Not that hiking around a few blocks of downtown with no hills usually does.)
- Enjoy the beach at Lake Michigan
We opted for the closest beach we could think of at Independence Lake.
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| We love our new Puddle Jumper! |
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| Currently, he loves lakes and swimming pools and hates bathtubs. |
- Play at one of the many water parks in Traverse City
After a few fun hours at Independence Lake, we headed next door to the Blue Heron water park (to replace both the water parks in Traverse City and as well as the nearby Rolling Hills park which seemed too expensive for a kid who might not like it).
- Try the ice cream at Moomers in Traverse City
Since we were already north of Ann Arbor, it wasn't too far to Hell, Michigan where we heard there was some good ice cream. We thought, why not and went there. The ice cream was in sort of a Halloween-y store focused on, well, hell. But in a silly sort of way. A "the road to hell is paved with good intentions and potholes" sort of way.
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| We had coaxed him from his nap with the possibility of Superman ice cream . . . and they had some! Happy boy. |
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| Blueberry cheesecake. |
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| I am 100% certain there is miniature golf in hell, just like there is in Hell. |
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| yup. |
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| yup. |
In one weekend, we had crossed off several items on our Napping Bear Sandbox list, but the fun wasn't over! Stay tuned!
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