August 4-5, 2021 Submarines AND Sand Dunes?

We had spent more time than planned in Grand Haven and it was time to move on so we drove up to Muskegon, MI where we visited the USS Silverside museum.  The USS Silverside is a WWII Gato class submarine.  We were able to go the submarine and explore the torpedo rooms, bunk rooms, control room and engine rooms.  Unlike the submarine at the Science and Technology Museum in Chicago this was no cleaned up exhibit but the actual submarine with its original equipment.  It was a tight fit in there and even the captain’s cabin was no bigger than a walk in closet. 

The entrance of the museum had a pamphlet rack with flyers of the various attractions in the area and one for a sand dune ride caught Holly’s eye so the next day we drove up to Silver Lake and we went on a tour of the Silver Lake Sand dunes.  The tour was on a modified F-250 open top trucks and was quiet comfortable.  We took some of the dunes at a high speed and got a bit of a roller coaster effect but not as exciting as driving our own dune buggy in Pismo Beach.  However it was not bad for $20 a person.  Another company rented dune buggies but that started at $380 so it was a little expensive and we passed.

We had been thinking about going to the Sleeping Bear Dunes National park but it was in northern Michigan and news had just come out that Canada was reopening it’s borders to American tourists so we decided to start heading back down and east towards Canada.  The Delta Covid variant was causing a new surge in the pandemic and Canada had far surpassed the US vaccination rate.  The infection rate in Canada was also much lower so it would be more fun and safer to go to Canada and visit Toronto and maybe even Nova Scotia before heading south.

Therefore, we headed back south, and upon reaching Grand Haven we had to stop again so that Olivia could have one more run at the skate park before stopping at the Grand Haven Walmart again.  We also visited the beach near Grand Haven and had a fun time at the beach playground there.