Betsie Beach

8-25-2021 Wednesday

On our way into town this morning for breakfast, we came past a truck with this sign:  “this vehicle may back up.”  We need that sign, and also one that says "this vehicle makes frequent u-turns."  

Breakfast took a while, there was a 20-minute wait, but they actually got us in a little quicker than that.  So many places are closed that the ones that are open are very busy, and most are short-handed.  Next to our parking spot was another hibiscus bush with huge blooms.  

The hand is for perspective.  The blooms are huge.

and on the corner was this sign, which I thought appropriate for my gardening friends.

We talked to a couple at the table beside us, and learned of another rocky beach we needed to check out.  This one is a little further than the Empire Beach that we drove to last night, and is supposed to have "blueys," a stone-like slag -- byproduct of a smelting process from an iron company in Leland long ago.  It can also be purple, gray or green.  

Anyway, after breakfast, we headed to our Betsie Beach that we had found yesterday, and spent a couple hours picking up rocks.  We carried our bucket and chairs down to the shoreline, but I forgot our pickers and had to go back to the Jeep.  Meanwhile, Joe just couldn't wait to get started -- surprised me.  

The piles of rocks we had seen last night were gone.  There was a small pile in the corner by these wooden pylons, but eventually they disappeared too -- either covered with sand or washed back into the lake.  There were several people enjoying the water, but none more than these two kids who kept jumping up into the waves as they crashed into these wooden pylons.

the lake was a little rough, waves pretty strong, but there were boats out there.

This is rough work on my back, so I took a little break and enjoyed the view for a few minutes.

but time is precious, so I was quickly back at it.

After a couple of hours, by which time we were thirsty and had forgotten to stop for our morning soda, we headed back to the parking lot.  There, we talked a couple for a few minutes -- they knew about the blueys too and were thinking about heading up there next. Anyway, the guy had converted a golf club into a "picker."  He said when he picks up a rock and decides he doesn't want it, he just knocks it out into the lake with the head of his golf club.  He laughed and said he really doesn't do that, but I thought it was a good idea.  Made me laugh.

The drive to Leland took about an hour, driving past pretty Crystal Lake again, which is huge.  We are driving on a little strip through this part of the drive, Lake Michigan on the left, Crystal Lake on the right.  

Joe spotted this mailbox.  Another use for rocks for me and my rockhound friends.

Our highway passes right through the Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore, and Joe wanted to take the scenic drive here, so we turned around and went back to the beginning of that.  This is the Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive, and it is scenic.  (By the way, our American the Beautiful Pass got us in here free.)  There are several pull-outs with views of Lake Michigan and the sand dunes.

Where there aren't dunes that you can see, it is very woodsy.

and we drove right past the dune that people can climb.  Joe and Mazie climbed to the top of this when we were here in 2015.  Joe said he wasn't climbing it without Mazie so we moved along.

We moved on to Leland, several miles.  We did stop for a soda and snack, which was a good thing.  We had a hard time finding the beach in Leland, and there are 3 we were told!  After asking twice, we finally found the trail between houses -- it just looked like another driveway the 2 times we had driven past.  We did spook a deer as we were driving through the streets here, looking for the beach. 

We didn't take our chairs this time -- it was already after 5:00 so we knew we couldn't stay here too long. Again, Joe is hard at it.

This was a nice beach, and we were glad we found it.  It had better rocks than Betsie, but we didn't find many "blueys."  Of course, we are never sure what we are looking for.  But we did find a few Petoskeys so that was good. 

The water was a little calmer and we worked until our backs were breaking, then Joe had to carry our bucket up the trail to the car.  By now, it's 6:30 and we hadn't had any lunch, so we were hungry and ready to end our day.  We found a restaurant a few miles out of Leland and had dinner, then made our drive home.  It was just after 9:00 when we got back to the campground, and we were not sure we would be able to get out of the Jeep.  Every move elicited a groan.  

We are moving on tomorrow, across the bridge into the U.P.  Haven't got a place to stay tomorrow night yet, but are hoping for a campground around St. Ignace.  Weather was nice today, low 80s, partly cloudy.  That's why we are here.  I think home made 108 today.  Yuk.