8/18/18 Saturday: We started our day at Crescent Bakery, with a nice iced latte and donuts! This was a very busy and tiny place!! Then the gang picked us up around 11:00, and away we went to see the surrounding area.
Our first stop was on the south side of the bay, looking back at Frankfort.
And then a spot where we could overlook the breakwater and lighthouse entrance to the harbor.
Frankfort is another one of the DNR harbors where the Army Corp of Engineers dug a channel from Lake Michigan to access another lake as a safe harbor – Betsie Lake. We are pretty well sheltered from Lake Michigan here, although surprisingly, we still have some water action all night long.
We stopped by the Betsie Lighthouse, which was established in 1858 and still serves on Betsie Point.
And then we went to see the Crystal Downs Country Club where Craig & Elizabeth are members. It is a beautiful golf course set on some very hilly terrain. The clubhouse was so nice, on a great spot with an amazing view of Lake Michigan.
This is part of the inside of the building. It was very unique!
And here is our selfie of the girls – me, Elizabeth, and Susan, with Crystal Lake and the golf course in the background.
Out next stop was the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. This view was breathtaking – and I did not get close to the edge. I don’t know that it really was an edge…. but people disappeared very quickly as they walked down the steep sand hill.
Here is a view of the slope that goes over 450 feet down to the lake. We were standing on an overlook. People (CRAZY PEOPLE) go down the hill, then take a couple of hours to come back up, because the sand is loose. So every step gains you about 3 inches. People were crawling back up the hill on all fours, and taking a very long time. Watching the kids run down the hill just scared me, because it is a LOOOONG way to tumble to the bottom!
I stayed safe and sound at the top with my man!
The giant sand dunes rising up out of the lake were more amazing than I imagined while standing here than when we saw them from the lake.
The name “Sleeping Bear” is named after an Ojibwe legend. According to one legend, an enormous forest fire on the western (Wisconsin) shore of Lake Michigan drove a mother bear and her two cubs into the lake for shelter. After many miles of swimming, the two cubs lagged behind. When the mother bear reached the eastern (Michigan) shore, she waited on the top of a high bluff. The exhausted cubs drowned in the lake, but the mother bear stayed and waited in hopes that her cubs would finally appear. Impressed by the mother bear’s determination and faith, the Great Spirit created two islands (North and South Manitou islands) to commemorate the cubs, and the winds buried the sleeping bear under the sands of the dunes where she waits to this day.
There were a lot of people here today, and I cannot believe how many were going down the big giant hill. And you HAVE to come back up on your own. There is no way for a vehicle to pick you up from the bottom or any where in between.
From here we drove to the little village of Glen Arbor, which is actually where that awesome Cherry Republic salsa and BBQ sauce comes from! Along the way was some nice farm land and a cool barn – that I didn’t get a very good picture of.
We stopped here for lunch, and they had some really yummy sandwiches! Kenny had a bowl of beef chili that he could eat with a fork.
From here, we went back to the National Park to the site of the Glen Haven Maritime Museum at Sleeping Bear Point. This was a Life Saving Staion from 1901 – 1930. This pre-dated the Coast Guard! They had a bunch of equipment that was used to rescue seamen from shipwrecks. At this particular place, the passage between the point and the Manitou Islands was a ‘shortcut’ that resulted in a lot of shipwrecks. The ranger did a demonstration of how they would perform a rescue from shore. This was a safer method than sending out a rescue boat. It was fun, because he used children from the audience to help him.
The rescue involved shooting a line out to the sinking ship by using a cannon to shoot out a weight with a line attached. The ship would receive the weighted line, tie off the line, then the men on shore would use that line to string out a heavier line to be used as a ‘zip-line’ to bring the men to shore in a big cloth bucket. They also had a rail type track to be used to launch a boat if necessary.
Inside the museum we saw life jackets in the boat were made of CORK!
This wagon carried all kinds of rope and line to help with the rescue efforts.
This line was actually made of flax, rather than hemp. It is very smooth and does not snag or catch. I thought it was really interesting how they would weave the line on the pegs, then they would turn the whole thing over (as the container on the right shows). The line would then feed out easily without any snags, snarls, or knots. This was how they prepared the line to be shot out with the cannon, so that it could feed out very quickly without snagging or snarling up.
This was the “breeches float” that the seamen would get into to be brought back to shore.
It was a very interesting presentation! They also had a building that showed the quarters in which the Life Savers men lived. And I thought this was cool – it’s the old throttle control from a ship.
On our way back to town, we stopped at the Grocer’s Daughter Chocolate shop. This is run by a lady who’s family is from Holland, and she makes all-natural amazing chocolates, including a variety of ‘fudgecicle’ kind of goodies….which we had. Yum!
It’s amazing the little unique shops you can find out in the middle of nowhere, that do a great business! I was amazed at the amount of inventory and specialty this shop had – and there was hardly anything around it, in the tiny village of Empire, MI.
We had a great day with friends, and we hope to see them again down the waterways. Back in town, we wandered about a bit. There are some cool old buildings. This is the bakery where we got our breakfast goodies.
It is a nice little town, with a lot of shops and activity.
Then we walked out on the pier just before sunset. Families were still out enjoying the beautiful day – jumping in the water, with little kids squealing with delight on every jump. There are ladders along the cement jetty wall, and both sides are nice for swimming.
Thank you for a nice stay, Frankfort! You are a great little beach town! As they say here….No Salt, No Sharks, No Worries!