Glen Haven and Grand Haven

There is a tiny town nestled between the Sleeping Bear Dunes and Glen Arbor called Glen Haven. It's only 16 acres in size and was originally known as Sleeping Bearville (why did they change it?) We headed over there one drizzly day to visit the Maritime Museum and watch a life saving demonstration geared toward children. The museum was once a U.S. Life Saving Station, later becoming The Coast Guard. The building was moved from its original spot to this location because the sand had begun to bury it.

Here is Wyatt checking out a boat in the boat house.

After we toured the museum, we headed outside to watch a re-enactment of a breeches buoy rescue using Raggedy Ann and Andy as the shipwreck victims. Some older children became the Life Saving crew, while Noah and some others joined the two Raggedys on the sinking ship. The breeches buoy is exactly what it sounds like - a pair of pants attached to a buoy that the victim would climb into to then be carted back to shore via a sturdy line. After the two dolls were safe, the "waves" became too strong to continue using the breeches buoy so the rest of the helpless victims (including Noah) were rescued by a "rowboat". I was really impressed with how Noah did out there all by himself and how well he played along.

Breeches Buoy Rescue:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Y02bCZpV4M&feature=youtu.be

On our way home from vacation, we stopped in the other Haven (Grand Haven) to stretch our legs and have dinner.



Dune Hiking

We went on three nice hikes while on vacation. The first was the Cottonwood Trail, appropriately named because there was an exhorbitant amount of cottonwood fluff floating around the start of the trail. This trail was mostly sandy and took us in between the main Sleeping Bear dune and another smaller dune.

Noah pooped out a little over halfway through the hike. Understandable since he's not used to hiking and it was a little rough walking through all that sand.

Our second hike was a little further down the road from the dunes to a place called Pyramid Point. After a short climb, we reached a sandy cliff with a gorgeous view of Lake Michigan.

Noah built himself a little "castle" out of rocks

It almost looks like he's going to fall right off this cliff, but I promise you it was not that dangerous.

Our final hike was the Bluff Trail in the town of Empire. This was the easiest (but hardest to track down) of the three hikes. The path led us to an overlook with a great view of the Sleeping Bear Dunes.