Tuesday, September 3, 2013

Wilderness State Park (part two)

On Sunday, the weather was still dry but a bit overcast. We were happy to be rid of some of the big mud pools around our campsite! We had a big breakfast before heading to Mackinaw City Bible Church. We played a little Dutch Bingo with some people in the congregation and the kids always like checking out the nurseries and kid programs at other churches.
Then after church we hit the beach!
 Here's our little family: ready to grow by two more feet next spring! 
 These two kids loved splashing in the shallow bay right by our campsite!


 On Monday, Labor Day, we had planned on doing the Bridge Walk. We didn't do it the previous year because I was 7 months pregnant. However, when we woke up so very early to get ready and catch the shuttles and it was dark and cold and rainy and windy... I chickened out thinking about pushing my "babies" so high up in the air in that cold, windy, wet weather! So we did the next best thing: we slept in and then drove the bridge. It was a slow procession following all the shuttling school buses but we all were able to watch all the people walking it (yes, they looked cold!). I even spotted some neighbors of mine from South Olive in the crowd. 
 So where did we go on the "other" side of that bridge? Tahquamenon Falls of course!
 Both kids enjoyed the hiking we did there (the rain stopped here and there). Yep, they both slept the whole time our carriers. 
 But they woke up to at the end to see the waterfalls!
 On Tuesday, we hit up the Wilderness State Park General Store for more donuts before packing up. 
 Do you think she loves these fresh little donuts or what? Well, the frosting anyway... the driver and his navigator ate a few donut "bottoms" that weekend. Ahem. 
We took the scenic drive along the north shore through Petoskey and Traverse City on the way home. We even went up to Mission Point and stopped along the shore to check out a few State Parks we'd never seen. Nobody was in a hurry to get home. 



Monday, September 2, 2013

Wilderness State Park (part one)

We drove up to the top of the mitten for Labor Day Weekend with our little popup trailer, hoping to enjoy a few long days in the sun and sand. That was not the case, however. Instead, it rained and rained and rained... So we decided to take a few day trips instead of sitting in our camper all day, every day. Friday we headed north to see the Locks and visit Ontario.

 Elijah "meets" his first Mountie (er, Royal Canadian Mounted Police) in the Welcome Center of Sault Sainte Marie, ON.
 We went to the Canadian Bushplane Heritage Centre and it was very cool! We could touch and even climb in most of the airplanes!



 We also hit up the mall in town to do some shopping. We bought the kids some clothes from Roots and the Canadian Carter's. Then, we stocked up on some Canadian goodies. A few treats I knew I wanted to eat (ketchup chips) and some for the kids (Rockets and Smarties - like our Smarties and M&Ms) and a few Derek discovered that are amazing (mostly chocolate bars - one is a candy bar basically made out of sea foam! Cadbury Crunchie bar... why oh why don't they sell those in our area!!). 
 The next day, the sun came back and we hit the docks in Mackinaw City to take a ferry over to Mackinac Island. 
 We took our bikes and bike trailer for Elijah to ride in and then rented a Wee Hoo tag-along for Abigail to "test drive".  There are no pictures of us biking the island... I guess we had our hands full towing the kids. 
 It was a beautiful day (the best one of the weekend!) so we were glad we chose to do The Island that day. Abbi was sad to leave...