A cautionary tale...with five photos

I'm joining in with Tricky over at FAST - homesteading blog for another Five on Friday.

Since making the decision about a year and a half ago for me to stop working hubby and I made a commitment to spend more time together. He wanted to go camping and hiking and I was more than willing (well, a little apprehensive) to give it a try. Turns out I love camping and we have several trips planned this year. As for the hiking, I've always enjoyed walking. It's the one exercise I do like. Now that I'm not working on Sundays it's our day to go. We've gone on many walks, including over the winter when it was bitterly cold outside. We visited lots of lighthouses and state parks. There are so many wonderful trails in Michigan. It really is a beautiful state.

For this Five on Friday I'm sharing the second part of our walk from Sunday. You can see part one HERE if you're interested. The scenery was beautiful but the walk wasn't long so we decided to head to a park not too far away. Van Buren State Park. We've been there before, took the walk to the dog beach when we were searching for dog beaches when daughter was still here. On Sunday we decided to try another trail. This one looked like it was supposed to reach the beach. 

It did. Quite a way down. 

 We took it thinking it would meander down the dune to the lake below. 

For a while it looked that way. Until we reached a drop.

It was a steep drop down onto the beach below. Hubby being the brave one (?!) decided to go down first. He said we would be fine. We could slide on our bums downwards until we reached the beach. I gave him the camera bag and let him go first.

He slid on his bum, his legs wobbled in the shifting sand and he did a roly poly down the hill. Luckily he wasn't hurt. A couple watched from the beach. Nope. Not me. I wasn't doing that! Just my luck I'd break something. Of course I had to move somewhere. Up or down. My first thought was just taking a seat on the sand and...well, maybe something would come to me. The sand was quite squishy and shifting and it was quite a way down. I was getting rather dizzy looking down.

I decided going up would be better. I couldn't turn around and walk up. It was really steep and I could feel the sand shifting beneath my feet.  I had to do some back crawling up the hill using the straw-like grass to help me back up (my arms did not thank me for that on Monday!). I managed to get to a point where I found a sort of path through the sand dune. Husband was trying to shout at me which way to go, but I couldn't hear too well as the wind whistled around me.

This is about where I came down and believe me this was easier than where hubby came down! Luckily by this time the people on the beach had moved along obviously tired of the show we were putting on.

A lovely view when we did get down. Had to sit down on a log to give my legs a moment to stop wobbling!

It could have ended badly. We probably should have stopped at the top, admired the view and turned around. Hubby probably should have paid attention to his little handheld unit when it had the lines really close together showing a steep hill. Oh well, lesson learned!