Personal Narrative Essay: Sleeping Bear Dunes

This past summer I traveled up north to Leelanau, Michigan, with my best friend, Mary, and her family. Mary’s family is basically a second family to me because we have known each other since Kindergarten. Her family goes up every year for a family vacation, but this was my first time going up with them because her older sister could not come this year. While we were up there, we traveled around to several tourist places. One of the places we went was Sleeping Bear Dunes. I have been to this place several times before, but it constantly takes my breath away because of its beauty. At the Sleeping Bear Dunes there is a hill that leads straight to Lake Michigan. This hill is so steep that from the top it looks more like a cliff than a hill. Mary, all five of her brothers, and I ran down the hill in less than a minute trying to race each other to the
As you go down this hill, your momentum only goes up until you get to the bottom and are forced to stop unless you want to end up in the middle of Lake Michigan. We spent a few minutes at the bottom of the hill to look around, take pictures, and to catch our breaths. Then we turned around and looked at the climb that we were about to take on. Three of Mary’s brothers were already on their way up the hill when she and I started our twenty minute climb. Mary started to get ahead of me because I slowed down to try to count how many steps it would take me to get to the top of the hill. As I reached two hundred steps I looked behind me only to realize that I was only about half way up. This climb became very challenging because of the steepness of the hill and the shifting of the sand every step. As I started to drip sweat, I was reaching the top and felt pretty accomplished. I was taking a break every fifty to sixty steps to catch my breath for a moment, and was determined not to lose count of my