Platte River Sleeping Bear Dunes National Park, MI. The Platte River campsites are big, wooded and private; the new 25 ft extension pole cell signal booster mounted on Vinny proved itself without a doubt making website access possible.
The best thing is the hiking trails that start right at the campground from several Loops and that go through the beautiful fern covered forest. After battening down in Vinny for 24 hours when a rainstorm came through, the 30-minute stretch legs through the campground walk turned into our longest hike ever at 9 miles. The damp cool weather and super easy grade through the soft dirt path kept us wanting more and All Trails kept us knowing the way home. We started a Lasso Loop trail, at the campground Loop 3, turned right and then seeing another trail immediately heading into the woods. After hiking a bit on that we saw signs for Deer Lake and Bass Lake Loop Trail, and after hiking a bit to Deer Lake, turned around and took the Bass Loop back.
We were on the lookout for bears.
No they were just the cutest shy black Michigan squirrels.
It was definitely a Salted Caramel Whiskey and Advil night after the over indulgent hike.
The other popular thing to do here is a Platte River Paddle trip. There are vessel rental companies right outside NP and they have ice cream.
We rode our bikes there on the first day after riding the Lake Michigan Road (nice paved wide shoulder, but fast whizzing cars) to where else, but Lake Michigan where we spied our first glimpse of this magnificent Lake.
Here we saw the piles of canoes and tubes for pickup by these companies because the Platte River ends right at Lake Michigan is usually a leisurely experience for tubing or paddling. As we are snowbirds now and big warm weather babies, we have decided not to paddle this trip since this is best on a splash pleasant weather not the 66 degree overcast weather that is forecasted for the better weather day.
We had also hiked to lake Michigan from the campground and got a taste of what the Sleeping Bear Point dunes hike would be like. 
As we approached the Lake the quad work-out commenced as the terrain turned to deep sand.
Severe Thunderstorms were in the forecast so we decided this short hike would be perfect.
After our overzealous 9 mile hike through the fern forest, we decided biking was in order for the day and found the Peterson Road dirt road to be perfect. What a difference a storm makes on Lake Michigan.
Two days prior the lake from nearly the same place was tranquil.
This was the constant muffled rushing sound that we had wondered about on our unexpectedly long 30 minute turned 3 hours hike without Greenie, my iconic water bottle, that I generally bring everywhere after living in the desert. But the damp cool on that day didn’t even get us thirsty.
The Platte River experience was beautiful despite the less than desirable weather. We have seen only a pair of people on all the hikes and bikes in the campground much different than the hopping Higgins experience. Finally, the sun is coming out and today is transfer day heading to the duney part of the Sleeping Bear National Park for 2 nights.
Travels with Vinny VanGo 