This has been on my to do list for years. Before Brigitta and Sydney were even born, actually. The guidebook painted this charming picture of children running up on the dunes while having the beauty of Lake Michigan behind them. While our walk from the parking lot to the beach strongly reminded me of east coast beaches I love like in Maine and North Carolina, our experience was not so golden.
See the dunes there in the background? They are eroding and hence, protected. Anyone who even attempted to walk on them received two sharp blasts from the lifeguard's whistle and a sharp reprimand. I read that you can hike the big dune, Mount Baldy, if you sign up for a ranger to escort you to the top. And that just gets to to the top-ish, the top, top is restricted. The drive there wasn't anything to write home about either. As charming as the song "Gary, Indiana" is from Music Man, it's a rather depressed area. Still, I'm all about checking things off of lists and while we were there, we were determined to make the best of it.
I became a total cliche and traded our old Radio Flyer for this collapsible wagon. I'm not ashamed to admit I love it and this is our new beach buddy.
Almost every time we go to the beach, the girls begin digging a hole. Back in the day, they'd make a little wading pool for Sydney who was too afraid to brave the expansive lake. Now it's just kind of a tradition.
They worked really hard on this one, with towers and pinwheels at each corner even.
We were pretty proud of that thing. As we made ready to leave for the day, a woman unabashedly parked her towel right next to it and her toddler moved right in. It kind of felt like they'd been waiting for us to vacate.
In other adventures of sand construction, Liesel and Ireland worked really hard on mermaid tails for their little sisters.
They were pretty proud of those too. See how they decorated them with rocks and everything?
A close up of one of the seashells they made using the handle of the pinwheel.
All that work, so quickly destroyed!
There's always a battle regarding sunscreen which I am adamant about applying on the regular. I actually set an alarm on my phone to make sure nobody burns. Brigitta asked if she could do it on her own and I told her that was fine. Her face definitely didn't burn!
We started the summer with just one set of water wings so they automatically went to Sydney. She was much braver in the water with a little support.
I thought it would be fun to get some photos of Liesel with my wrap and I was really loving how they turned out.
Pretty cool, eh?
When she pulled this face I knew she was done- haha!
We won't be back to the Indiana Sand Dunes but at least we can say we tried it!
No comments:
Post a Comment