(part 3 in a series)

Continuing my clockwise journey around Lake Michigan, I left the upper peninsula and made my way to Wilderness State Park, 11 miles west of Mackinaw City, which features 26 miles of beautiful shoreline.

For my next stop, I was fortunate to get one night at a campground in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, home to massive dunes and panoramic views of Lake Michigan.

The size of the dunes is hard to convey in a photo, but I’ll give it a try. In the photo below, you might think the gentleman in the blue shirt is photographing the far-away island, the cargo ship, or the young girl in the foreground. No, he is photographing two adults standing at the base of the dune.

Where the Platte River empties into Lake Michigan, the moving water creates a serpentine channel in the sand, where I found a few herons basking in the morning sun.

While I was driving around early in the morning, a weathered gray barn caught my eye.