Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, Michigan, United StatesDH Day group campground - Sleeping Bear Dunes NL
I think I woke up pretty early. I found more things wrong with this hotel. When I went downstairs to get coffee and check out their cold breakfast, I couldn't find the cups, so I went behind the counter and pulled out a bunch (later I saw a few in a rack I missed). When I poured coffee - there actually was some, but no tops for the cups. The desk people couldn't find them either. As I went back to the room, I climbed the stairs but had to put down the cups to open the stuck door. Kara and I have trash-talked the Clarion now for two days.
We knew the Fredrik Meijer Gardens didn't open until 11 am so we didn't rush and it was only about 5 miles away. I can't remember if we did anything else before going to the gardens. We found a parking space in the shade in one of the most distant parking lots - with no cars. Then as we approached the main building, we saw a beautifully landscaped parking lot with cars. We We stopped there to take photos of the hibiscus and allium
We entered a fairly long line with mostly masked people and got our tickets and went off to explore the adjoining big, tall, very impressive greenhouse. There were the usual tropical house plants and charmingly photogenic succulents but the building was mot impressive. There was construction outdoors tfor something new - not sure what. Then we walked toward the Japanese Garden. On the way, we stopped (at the amphitheater and the huge horse sculpture) to eat an impromptu pizza lunch - Kara brought 6 pieces with her as part of our food supplies. We are well sup plied! Kara was amused when I went under the giant horse to get a photo of its belly and stuff. I needed to get a photo for Barbara.
There were sculptures and art work all around the gardens but we would later check out the actual sculpture park and sculpture gallery. The Japanese Garden was very big and had lots of plants, lakes, and a wooden brdige but both of us felt that it was not so Japanese - not like the Portland Japanese Garden. The building features were not in Japanese style, and, even though it had some bamboo fountains, it didn't have much in the way of bamboo garden features or statues. It was very beautiful, well groomed and impressive though. The most beautiful koi I think I have ever seen but they were in the Waterfall area, which was on the far side of the Sculpture Park. I guess that counts though. We went to the Michigan's FarmGarden even though Kara wasn't sure - we needed to skip something to get through it all in the afternoon before leaving for the dunes. But this turned out to be one of the best parts - the farmhouse was perfect, they had beautiful plants in the farm garden and sculptures of farm animals,including several pigs. I sent Sharon a few pig photos. There was a woodland shade garden that we walked through on our way to the sculpture park.
We pretty much saw all we wanted and it was 3:30 by the time we left - a little late. Oh, we stopped in the gift shop and I bought a book on the garden with gave the history of the horse sculpture.
From Grand Rapids, we drove North to get to the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. Oh, yes, at some point we made the agonizing attempt to get a campsite reservation at Sleeping Bear. After calling the reservation number, we were told the best way was on-line but Kara used their telephone number anyway and there only appeared to be one campsite available for groups of 7 or more. We took it and I have agonized over this bit of misinformation for days now. I think we got bumped off the call at least 2 times before Kara was successful. We set the GPS for Sleeping Bear Dunes generally until we were almost there. The GPS took us over some beautiful concrete highways - limited access - and non. Then we zig-zagged through back roads - some with more nice houses, farms and lawns. Oh yes, something got deleted here and I don't remember what. There were corn fields and alfalfa...or maybe not alfalfa. There were fewer farms here I think. We loved rural Michigan - it was so tidy and picturesque!
| Sun, Aug 15, 2021 Check-In: 2:00 PM Mon, Aug 16, 2021 Check-Out: 12:00 PM |
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G003, D.H. DAY Group Sites D.H. Day Group Campground Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore Reservation Details | Cancellation / Refund Policies |
Eventually, I don't think I can put down all the turns we took, we got to the DH Day campground. It was after 7 pm so the person was gone, but a sign directed us to a host at site 35. We finally found that and she told us how to find the group campsite. That was not too hard - not as hard as getting out of the group campsite. We drove to the group campsite to see that there were only 3 sites - two had groups and then there was us. We hurriedly pitched our tent and put out our sleeping bags and then made our dinner. We had extremely delicious tomato basil mozzarella sandwiches on Italian bread - we had stopped at a grocery store to get bread and ended up with a watermelon for 2.99. Kara wasn't particularly happy about the watermelon. We still have it a day later. There wasn't much to do after eating our dinner and it was already getting darkish. We took a short walk on the heritage trail Kara had seen one group leave and walk in that direction. We were hoping for a sunset on the dunes, but we didn't think the trail got that close to the shore. So we hopped into the tent and were soon asleep - or sort of. I don't think either of us had a particularly restful night. The ground was very hard. Kara hadn't entirely gotten rid of her heachache and she wouldn't take any excedrin because of the caffeine.
During the whole day, the weather was gorgeous. It did get a little warm walking around the garden but it was still gorgeous - blue sky, bright sunlight!
2025-05-22