Beautiful Michigan - Five on Friday 27th May

It's Friday again and time to join in with the wonderful group over at Love Made My Home for Five on Friday. It's a fun time to look around at other blogs and see what people are sharing. There are always wonderful stories and gorgeous photographs.

For my Five on Friday this week I'm going to share some thoughts/pictures from the trip we just went on further up north in Michigan.

I am not a native Michigander. I was born and raised in Suffolk, England. I moved here with my husband who is from this area. We met while he was stationed in England in the Air Force and we moved back here via a short stay (stationed) in New Mexico before settling here. I was VERY homesick in New Mexico. It is very dry and warm and there isn't a lot of change in season. Here in Michigan things are greener and the seasons are very definite. I don't like all the snow (average of 62 inches per year apparently) and the cold. I am, however, coming to appreciate the beauty of Michigan. For a while there when the kids were little we seemed to just go about our daily business and we didn't really explore. Now we are finding the time to get out and about.

Monday and Tuesday of this week we took a mini-break to the Northern part of the state (not the Upper Peninsula where we will be taking a later holiday). It is a beautiful part of the state.

Our first stop was Sleeping Bear Dunes. I have never been there before and hubby only visited when he was little. My friend told me about the Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive so we decided to go on that.
This was the first view we stopped at (not quite at the dunes).

From there we travelled on to the dunes.

We decided to take a trail through the dunes. It was hard going even though it was only a mile and a half. It isn't easy walking on all that sand! The wind was pretty strong in places too.

It was well worth the views!

If you look close enough you can see the specks that are people brave enough to climb up the dunes!

On the drive there are several places to pull over and get out, walk and look. One of the most spectacular is the Lake Michigan overlook. The platform is 450ft above the lake.

The weather was just glorious. We were so lucky. It was pretty warm but not hot enough to make it really uncomfortable and, as you can see, the sky was blue and the sun was shining.

From here we moved on to Traverse City and up along the old Mission Peninsula to visit the lighthouse at the very tip. It was built in 1870.

The trip along the peninsula up to the lighthouse is gorgeous. There are lots of vineyards and the views down into Lake Michigan are gorgeous.

We got to spend a lovely night in Traverse city and just before sundown took a walk along the lakeshore and sat to watch the sunset.

There is another lighthouse in the Leelanau State park at the top of the Leelanau Peninsula. Another beautiful drive. We saw three rather large turkeys walking along the road! There are several cherry tree farms as this area is quite famous for them. They were still in blossom and quite beautiful. We are planning to camp at the Leelanau State park later in June so we wanted to pick out our spot. Not that we needed an excuse. I love visiting the lighthouse.

This one was built in 1858. Apparently volunteers stay in the lighthouse for a week at a time and help take care of it. I picked up a leaflet but don't know I'd ever get picked! People even volunteer to stay in the winter. They must be BRAVE souls as I'm pretty sure it gets really snowy and cold with the winds coming off the lake.

Before heading home we stopped at a couple of shops. I don't really like shopping a lot on our holidays. In most cities/towns the shops are all the same, but in some places there are some cool independent places to shop.

Who can resist cheese?

 The Cherry Republic - everything Cherry!

It was a fantastic trip. Thanks for sharing it with me!