Day 3

Yesterday began with Jay bringing me breakfast. We knew that we were going to Sleeping Bear Dunes and that we’d need energy for the Dune Climb, so Jay got us some delicious breakfast sandwiches: scrambled eggs and bacon on ciabatta, aka the Egg McMuffin on steroids. 

It was very good and very filling and we were ready for our drive up Leelanau peninsula. Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore was recently named the most beautiful place in the America (or one of them) by some magazine or the other. I agree that it is very beautiful, but I think I still like Big Sur better, but that’s just a matter of preference. After picking up our visitors pass, we went on a scenic drive that took us through gorgeous forest and gave us some great views of the lake. 

By the end of the drive we were ready to get out of the car and….

Climb The Dune.

There’s a big dune at Sleeping Bear Dunes that people climb. It’s a challenge, families do it with their children and then enjoy the view from the top and then sprint, roll, fall back down to the bottom. Never ones to pass on a challenge, Jay and I decided to do the climb.

The Dune, before the climb:

The Dune after the climb:

What? They look the same, you say? Maybe so, but my feelings about the dune were very different between those two shots.

I thought I was in decent shape. I knew it would be difficult, and I knew I’d be breathing hard by the end of it, but I thought I could handle it.

Man I was wrong.

I need to up the resistance on the elliptical, cause I got my ass handed to me on a silver platter by a giant hill of sand.

The view from halfway up:

I was ready to stop here. There’s a plateau before the dune continues up in a couple of directions, but Jay really wanted to make it all the way to the top, so I did my best to endure. I pretty much kept my head down and kept moving and hoped it would all be over soon.

And we made it!!

It was worth it too, cause the view was stunning:

After lingering up top for a little, we ran most of the way down to the bottom, which was ridiculously fun.

After that we drove to Leland, which is a little fishing town. We got lunch at Stonehouse bakery. Jay had some turkey sandwich or another. I had a Peanut Butter Banana and Nutella Panini.

What?

I’m on vacation.

We walked around a little bit in town. There were a couple of cute shops, and I almost got Jay to buy some fudge, but my heart wasn’t really in it so I didn’t try very hard.

After that we went to a winery that had been recommended by one of my coworkers who likes to come up here with her fiancé. All the other wineries we’ve been to usually has something like 15 or maybe 20 wines and you can taste five or six. At Chateau Fontaine they have 10 and you get to try all of them PLUS the cherry wine, and they don’t put regulators on their sampling bottles so the pours are perhaps a little more generous than is necessary. And I have issues with spitting in front of people…so I wouldn’t say that I was even buzzed, but I did feel it a bit more than I had with our other tastings. Between the whites and the reds they offered a “palate cleanser” to showcase their “famous” cheeseball mix.

It was good, and Jay says he finally feels like we live in the Midwest. I married a snot.

Anyway, the wine was delicious, we bought a couple of bottles to add to our growing collection of wine that is probably going to last us for the duration of grad school.

After that we made out way back to Traverse city and headed out to Moomer’s. Moomer’s is the local ice cream place. Almost every place in town that serves ice cream serves Moomer’s and they’re award winning, and it’s been such a very long time since Jay and I had truly fantastic ice cream (It’s kinda bizarre how good the ice cream is in Boston: There’s J.P. Lick’s, Toscanini’s, E. Mack and Bolio’s, Christine’s….) so we’d been looking forward to trying the ice cream, though Jay insisted that we get our first taste at the mother ship and not one of the shops in town that just happened to carry it. So we went to Moomer’s.

That’s just what you picture when you think of ice cream, right? Ice cream, motorcycle gang, the two just go so well together.

Jay got Chocolate Caramel Chunk (or something like that) which was good and I had carrot cake, which was delicious. We ate out on the deck, which smelled a little like cow manure, since the shop is pretty close to the dairy. I didn’t mind. I had ice cream.

After that we went back to the hotel and watched a movie to rest. We went for dinner at a French restaurant in town, Amical. We forgot to take pictures of Jay’s gorgeous French onion soup, but let me tell you, it was impressive. I had a cheese plate for the very first time, and I really liked it. If cheese plates were offered as appetizers more often I’d do it all the time, but I’m not about to pass up dessert for the sake of cheese. It just won’t happen. The rest of the meal was very enjoyable, Jay had mussles, I had risotto, and we finished it with a strawberry-rhubarb cobbler (a la mode of course) that was the perfect end to the evening.

For our last day in Traverse city we’re planning on going to a couple more wineries and maybe going on a hike (though probably not in that order). We already started the day with a delicious Pulla, which is now on my list of “things to try baking myself SOON,” so it looks like it’s going to be a good day.

Sarah