September 22-30, 1973: A Week in North Carolina
	May 5, 1973: My New Chicago Neighborhood
	Return to Index for 1973

Late in the Summer, a group of us from the office spent a weekend up at Rich Seward's family's place near Traverse City in Northern Michigan. We had to caravan in a few cars, because there were a bunch of us. There was Rich Seward and his girlfriend Linda, Carol Malecha and myself, Al Bernard and his wife Connie, Joe Mangi, and Barb Destiche.

While the route I marked on the map at left might not be exact (I didn't think to record it exactly at the time, not ever thinking I would have an opportunity to create a photo album that would allow me to include things like maps), it will give you a decent idea of where Traverse City is in relation to Chicago.

Rich's family had a vacation home here, and they let us use it for the long weekend. Again, I confess that I don't remember exactly where it was, although I do remember that it was a good distance from Sleeping Bear Dunes State Park, where we spent most of our time. Again, I wish I'd jotted down the address, but again I never thought I would need it or wish that I'd remembered it.

There are two things I do know and did record. One was that we had the use of the Seward family's motorboat, and that we took it out once or twice on a lake between their house and the state park. (I remember this because I tried water skiing for the first time, and when I fell off the skis, I lost one of the two pairs of glasses that I brought.) The other was the fact that we spent most of our time at the State Park. We did a lot of neat things, fishing, water skiing, climbing the sand dunes, and so on. Carol got her nickname of "Cruncher" from the football game played on top of the dunes one afternoon. We had cookouts and the whole bit, everyone thoroughly enjoying themselves.

Sleeping Bear Dunes State Park

Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore is located along the northwest coast of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan a few miles north of Empire and about 20 miles northwest of Traverse City. The park covers a 35-mile-long stretch of Lake Michigan's eastern coastline, as well as North and South Manitou islands. This Northern Michigan park was established primarily because of its outstanding natural features, including forests, beaches, dune formations, and ancient glacial phenomena. The lakeshore also contains many cultural features including the 1871 South Manitou Island Lighthouse, three former stations of the Coast Guard (formerly the Life-Saving Service) and an extensive rural historic farm district.

The park was authorized only a few years ago, and its creation was highly controversial because it involved the transfer of private property to public. The federal government's stance at the time was that the Great Lakes were the "third coast" and had to be preserved much like Cape Hatteras or Big Sur, which are National Seashores. The residents living in what is now Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore believed themselves to be stewards of the land and did not want it to be overrun by tourists. The government eventually won out, in part by supporting the local schools to offset the lost property tax revenue and by adding North Manitou Island to be included in the park.

The Dunes and Nearby Glen Lake

The park is named after an Ojibwe legend of the sleeping bear. According to the legend, an enormous forest fire on the western shore of Lake Michigan drove a mother bear and her two cubs into the lake for shelter, determined to reach the opposite shore. After many miles of swimming, the two cubs lagged behind. When the mother bear reached the 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. The "bear" was a small tree-covered knoll at the top edge of the bluff that, from the water, had the appearance of a sleeping bear. Wind and erosion have caused the "bear" to be greatly reduced in size over the years.

One of the prime features of the park is, of course, the dunes themselves. Near the parking area there is a good deal of scrub vegetation, but as you get closer to the water, the vegetation disappears and you are left with windswept sand dunes:

I took quite a few pictures this weekend and had some of my friends take a few as well so I oould get in them. (I realize that my inexperience at candid photography showed up. I am OK taking pictures of scenery, as it stays still and lets me compose my shot. But I haven't yet gotten the knack of taking good action shots involving people, so I'll apologize that not all of these pictures are that good.)

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So to let you have a look at the pictures in the quickest, easiest way possible, I'll use a slideshow, and that slideshow is at left.

There are 25 pictures in the slideshow, and you'll be able to tell where you are by referring to the index numbers in the upper left of each slide.

To move from one picture to the next, just click on the little backward and forward arrows in the lower corners of each slide. The show wraps around, so going forward form picture 25 will bring you back to picture 1.

These pictures are very candid, and I thank some of my friends for using my camera to take a few pictures of me, too. Enjoy visiting Sleeping Bear Dunes with us!

Taking advantage of Labor Day, we had a great weekend, and if any of my friends who were along happen across this album page, I hope it brings back memories for them, too. And thanks to Rich and his family for letting us use their house!

You can use the links below to continue to another photo album page.

	September 22-30, 1973: A Week in North Carolina
	May 5, 1973: My New Chicago Neighborhood
	Return to Index for 1973