Warren Dunes State Park

We drove a full day from Rochester, NY to Warren Dunes State Park on Sunday after the reunion.

I really enjoyed this part of our trip, because, although we were seeing another great lake, and yet another scenic part of the country, we had a lazy beach day instead visiting tourist attractions. Tourist attractions are great, but require more planning and driving. Warren Dunes State Park is known for having several tall dunes that visitors like to climb. We went to the beach that was near one of the tallest and most popular, Tower Hill Dune.

Tower Hill Dune (rises 236 feet above Lake Michigan)

Lake Michigan is beautiful and about 3 times the size of Lake Ontario. As soon as Fay saw it she said, this is the Ocean! I was told by someone, at the peak of the dunes, he had seen the Chicago skyline the day before. We could see nothing but water and sky on our day.

It was a hot day, perfect of the beach. Not so perfect for walking on hot sand. We parked our RV at the edge of the lot so we could access it easily, but even the trek from the water to the RV was too much for bare feet. 

Fay, beating the head in Mommy's hat.

The scene at Lake Michigan

When we decided to climb the dunes, I told everyone to wear their sneakers so their feet would not burn.

Swimsuit sneaker glam shot

We made it to the top, after much complaining and crying from Rex. It really was difficult. It was steep and the sand just kept moving under neath our feet, so ever step felt like a baby step. The top was shaded and filled with a few groups of people. We were able to take a nice rest. Some people tried to ride cardboard boxes down the dunes (which did not work at all). Another boy tried a boogie board and had mild success. 

After the climb down, we enjoyed the beach a bit more and then splurged on a restaurant for dinner. The AC, clean room and non-hot-dog food selection was heavenly

Down with Asparagus (outside the restaurant) 

Rex's first chapter book

As an aside, if you want your new reader to go from starter books to full on chapter books this summer, here are the ingredients I used:

1. Bore your child to death by taking away their electronics and putting them on an endless road trip.
2. Offer them an engaging and age appropriate chapter book.
3. Don't bother researching number 2. Just give them the Kingdom of Wrenly series.

(When Fay was 6, I found the Kingdom of Wrenly books, and she gobbled them up. They were the first books she would actually pick up on her own. The books have a girl and boy protagonist and tons of sketches to easily transition from picture books to chapter books -- So happy the same thing seems to be happening to Rex, he's finished book one and on to book two)

I should also mention that Warren Dunes State Campground was great for a couple of reasons. Almost every kid in the campground brought a bike. There were a ton of little dirt paths behind our camp site, connecting all the sites as well as playgrounds, etc. But, also it was just a nice, kids heavy, biking heavy site.  Fay met a couple friends on the playground within minutes of playing there. 

We had to drive from our campground to the dunes and beach. But if we were ambitious (or had bikes), we maybe could've left the RV. The beach was about 1.5 miles from the camping ground.
I'll leave you with a shot of our campground so I can remember where we stayed

Next up: Wisconsin Dells!