From July 14th-17th, we (Mom, Dad, Mo-Mo and I), drove to Michigan to visit with old friends of my parents and explore farther North than my parents ever had a chance to when living there.
We left on Thursday at 5:40am and after driving through Pennsylvania and Ohio, arrived in Lansing, Michigan at roughly 5:15pm, where we visited an old friend, then went out to dinner with her.
We went to Cheddars, which is pretty much like Applebees. Mo-Mo was in a rare mood, and I dared her to jump up and do her happy dance in the aisle while we waited for our food, so she did... at the end, with the pictures, there is a video for proof...
The next day, after lunch at the picnic area near the dunes, we went to the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. We did the driving tour of the park and hiked 1.5 miles across the dunes instead of climbing up them from the bottom. It was beautiful, hot, and sandy.
I insisted on wearing flip-flops, but learned (the hard way) that they only make it harder to walk through sand cuz they flip it up behind you... I took them off a quarter of the way through the hike (don't tell the Rangers). When we got back to the car, I was coated in sand and had it in my shorts where they were folded up, in my pockets, and in my hair.
Saturday morning we drove back down from Manistee to the St. Joseph area. We had cake and ice cream at the singing-sanded beach, visited friends, had dinner at an old favorite restaurant, strolled through the Venetian Festival, and spent the night with very good friends of my parents.
When we were at a grocery store choosing our lunch on Friday, I saw a beautiful cake for $5. It was chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and SPRINKLES! I couldn't resist. We were going to eat it after our hike, but we were hot and tired, and after a long drive, when we were settled in at our hotel after dinner, we decided to go swimming and hot-tubbing instead of eating chocolate cake and ice cream. We brought it in from the hot car that night, and discovered that it had been squished, and the frosting was all over the top of the cover. We put it in the fridge for the night, and left it in the hot car until Saturday afternoon, when, with a pint of vanilla ice cream, we ate it on the beach with napkins and our hands (the original idea had been to buy a cake, then after a hot hike up the dunes, wash our hands and eat the cake by the fistful). It was good, but difficult to eat with the sand blowing, the lack of anything to drink it down with, and the napkins continually flapping over the cake, soaking up what was left of the frosting.
Sunday morning, after a wonderful night of shooting pool, hot showers, and our own beds, we went to the church my parents used to attend. The former pastor was visiting and speaking, so there was an amazing brunch outdoors after the service. I met like a thousand people, who all said my mom didn't look a day older (after 20-something years) and we looked just like our siblings (the two who, ironically, actually lived here once upon a time) and it was soooooo nice to meet us.
We showed off wedding pictures from my older sister's wedding and stood politely (or not so politely) off to the the side (or in the middle of people's conversations) while my parents talked, laughed, and reminisced with old friends.
At around 1:30pm, we finished saying our goodbyes and got in the car. It was a bitter-sweet thing to be leaving behind all our new friends who felt like they knew us the whole time and we loved getting to know. It was a quiet trip home, mostly filled with listening to The Hobbit on CD, and taking pictures of those crazy signs they have in Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.
We arrived home at 12:20am, dove into bed after lugging in our luggage, and woke up bright and early 7am for a full week including VBS and a huge birthday party!
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| Mo-Mo finishing up a good night's rest |
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| My watery Tim Hortons iced coffee |
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| It's official! |
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A sign you would never see in NY- 50% off
for fireworks, karate supplies, swords and knives, and stun-guns... |
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| Mo-Mo, Mom, and I next to Lake Erie |
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| Mom and Dad on a cement block, in front of Lake Erie |
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| Traffic jam!!!!! |
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| Never give her a sharp knife. |
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| Cool me with my superstar sunglasses |
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| Mo-Mo's cool person pose |
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Our picnic lunch at the dunes- Arizona iced tea,
pringles, chicken, and Michigan cherries |
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| Dad, dune-walkin |
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| A wind-blown bowl on the dunes |
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| Yes, we do have to walk up that |
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| Mo-Mo dune-walkin ahead of us |
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The dune-climb dune... those specks are people!
And the ones in that little parking-lot looking thing to the right are cars. |
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| Some of Michigan's biggest hills in the distance |
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| Looking down to the lake- yes, people are climbing that... it's only 450 feet up... |
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Make your OWN waffles! And we pay them to stay there.... |
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Stalactites and stalagmites on my waffle |
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| At St. Joe's Venetian Festival |
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| You know I was just about to dive off the edge... |
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| Too good to leave out- Kilwin's Chocolates |
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Heading to our friends' house Saturday night-
sunset out the back window |
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| My beautiful cake at its final resting place |
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| 70 mph- enough said |
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This is a bad picture, but shows that we were in Indiana (to the left)
and coming into Ohio (and who their Governor is) |
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| Starbucks and Cheez-Its... doesn't get much better than that. |
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| Cleveland, Ohio |
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| Wind turbine- it's way bigger than it looks |
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| The bright red sun going down |
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The fence kinda takes a little away from the
American flag at sunset thing... |
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The moon was huge and red. Then huge and orange. This shows it at its huge
and yellow stage. And without flash, it looks like a big yellow fuzz ball... |
