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| tops of 70+ ft trees |
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| a stop along L. Michigan beach |
Friday, August 26th. It was sunny this morning and more importantly,
not windy. We drove to town to have a dune buggy experience. Mac Wood Dune Buggy rides has been in business since 1930. He started with a model T that he put big tires on. Now there's a fleet of 12 passenger open air 'buggys' that are custom built on an International engine/drive train. They can really go in the sand. It's a great tour where the driver gives background on the dunes besides a fun ride.
The dune area used to be a white pine forest. When Chicago burned, a company came in and cut all the trees to supply lumber to rebuild Chicago. That left the ground exposed to the effects of the winds coming off the lake and the dunes began. The dunes encroach about 12 feet per year into the lake and surrounding cottages. Where cottages were on the edge of the dunes in years past, they are now buried by the dunes and there's no sign of their existence. There's a wealthy guy who now has the cottage on the edge. Every spring he has earth moving equipt. come in and move the sand away from his cottage. But they say it's a losing battle. There are stands of trees that are now buried in 70 feet of sand that you can just see the tops. There are some trees and grasses are being planted to stabilize the dunes. But for the most part they just blow like we see in the movies.
In the afternoon we all went to the beach via the dunes as described yesterday. I guess cuz it's Friday and it's a hotter day, there were many more people over on the dune shoreline. Buster had lots of playmates...kids who thought he was cool.
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| waiting for dune ride |
In the evening we went with our neighbors, Gary and Nancy Alexander, to a pizza place the a nearby little town of New Era. They spend 5 months up here and 7 months in Ft. Myers, Fla. They have a beautiful motor home and live in it up here and then store it in Florida. Gary grew up in this area so he knows it like the back of his hand. So after a GREAT pizza and very good ice cream (raspberry chocolate chunk) he gave us a tour of the area showing us things we would never have seen on our own You sure meet a lot of nice folks in the campgrounds/RV resorts.
Do they still allow private dune buggies to drive all over the dunes like 40 years ago? It was a blast but it could not have been very benign to the environment.
ReplyDeleteyes, there is a specific area where private dune vehicles can go. They include dune buggies, ATV's , off road motorcycles and conventional SUV's where they just reduce the tire pressure to 12 pounds to go on the sand.
ReplyDelete