Camping Day 1- Lake Michigan Recreation Area

In typical VG fashion, we had no clue where we were going to camp. It was a short trip so we tried not to go to far. A quick 3hr trip took us to the West Coast of Michigan.

There were 3 campgrounds in the area we were in. One was Ludington State Park. That place was busier than Black Friday at Walmart...not really my type of place. Then was the Nordhouse Dunes Wildlife Area. This is an area with, what is called, Dispersed Camping. You can camp anywhere in the Forrest for Free up to 14 days. I really liked this idea but no water or bathrooms had the wife thinking differently.

That left us with the Lake Michigan Recreation Area. This was a nice compromise of features. The sites were remote, not a ton of people and nice bathrooms. Time to set up camp and make some lunch!

Some burgers over the fire sounded good.

Onto the beach!

With a full belly it was time to head down to the beach. Of course no swimming for 30 minutes after eating. 😂🤣 You can see from the pics the beach is pretty much gone. With all the rain we have been getting, the lakes are up over 9 inches. Last year these beaches were about 15-20ft wider than this year. Another crazy part about the beach, no rocks at all. I usually collect rocks from all the places we visit but we found none. Oh well.

The really cool part was finding all the black sand on the beach. Hematite is a common mineral around here. I grabbed a few water bottles full that I'm going to pan and see if it has any flower gold in it!!!

Too many stairs

After our beach run we decided to climb the dune overlook. 195 stairs to the top of the dune. Doesn't sound like much but it got the calves burning. You can see it here on the map. That was a long walk.

End of Day 1

We wrapped up day 1 sitting on the beach and watching the sunset. A perfect way to end the day!

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Proud member of #steemsilvergold.