Wednesday morning we woke up bright and early and got on the road to head across Michigan. Our destination was Good Harbor Bay and the Leelanau Peninsula. We had a cranky little boy on our hands most of the morning. We made our way as quickly as we could to our first stop of the morning in Gladwin, MI. I found this little town in a Reader's Digest travel guide and noted it down because they supposedly had a nice park. And, they did. Dylan had a great time swinging and climbing and sliding and bouncing after being in the car all morning. And we made a new friend, a local girl who wanted to play with Dylan.
Dylan enjoyed riding on the little bouncers. And we ate a picnic lunch. We were happy to find out that Dylan's little clamp on chair fits on a picnic table perfectly.
We made it almost all the way to Elinore's house before Dylan woke up. Before that though, we reached Traverse City and caught our first glimpse of Lake Michigan. It is immense!
Our first glimpse of Lake Michigan.
Pulling in to Gousty Knowe, we realized what a treat our trip to Elinore's was going to be. We passed by a cherry orchard on the left. And the dirt road went abruptly up hill and around the curve to show us Elinore's house. The house sits atop the hill and is surrounded by a natural garden and trees. There is a hammock atop the hill and the view of Good Harbor Bay was spectactular.
The path to Elinore's house.
The front of Elinore's house.
Sunset on Good Harbor Bay taken through the front windows of Elinore's house.
My family tree can get a little convoluted, but to make it easy, Elinore is my great-aunt. When she heard we were moving to Ohio, she invited us up to visit her in Michigan. And I jumped at the chance to go somewhere new and visit with one of my mom's relatives. We met Elinore's son Wes for the first time and they suggested we head down for our first walk on the shore of Lake Michigan. We drove back down the hill, and basically across the street to the beach. The lakeshore is now the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, but Elinore lived there before that happened. The beach is lovely and Dylan immediately wanted to head into the water and dig in the sand (and take his shoes off, of course). At first he was a little unsure about Elinore and Wes, but by the next morning he was asking for them and wanting them to come eat breakfast with us ("see Elinore...see Wes too"). Oh, and did I mention that Elinore has a cat named "Baby". That made Dylan way happy.
As you can see Dylan is already wet in this photo. That's me, Dylan, Elinore and Wes. And Dylan is probably saying "towel!". If you look in the background you can see some old knobby pieces of wood sticking out of the lake. That was a dock 100 years ago.
That evening, I broke out my big box of old family photos. I was hoping Elinore might recognize some of the ones that weren't labelled (which was the majority of them). We had a good time looking through and hearing stories about photos she knew about. She's one of the few people still around who knew my mom when she was a little girl and my grandparents before they were married. It was really great hearing stories about them and getting to know them through her.
The next morning, we headed back to the beach for a little exploring. We were hoping it would improve Dylan's mood (slightly cranky and clingy). It did a little bit, but I ended up carrying him a lot of the way. Our destination was a little stream that Dylan could walk around in (which he did). I had to carry him all the way back to the car though, and that sand is not firm! But my arms sure were by the time we got back.
Dylan heads toward the water.
There's Dylan in the water. Man was it COLD! But it didn't seem to bother him one bit. Of course, I was the one who had to go in it with him because Denny had on socks and shoes. Did I mention it was COLD?
Aren't these cute little sandy feet?
Poor Denny thought he'd show me that we could walk on the firm sand near the water line without getting our feet wet. As you can see in this picture, he was wrong.
We decided to make a relatively quick trip to the closest nearby town, Leland to pick up a few groceries. They have a historic waterfront called "Fishtown" and a Cheese shop famous for their pretzel bread. They also have a playground (a recurring theme on our trip). While Denny and Dylan played, I went to order sandwiches for everyone, and then went in search of an ATM when it turned out they only took cash. And afterwards we hit the local Mercantile for some expensive groceries.
Dylan thinks about going down the big slide.
The view from Fishtown.
Ye Olde Cheese Shoppe in Fishtown.
While Dylan napped, I took my book outside and had a rest in the hammock. How lovely it was to be laying under the trees and actually needing a blanket to cozy up with in August.
After naptime, Elinore offered to take us down to pick cherries. The cherry orchard at the bottom of the hill is full of sour cherries, perfect for making pie. Dylan really enjoyed picking cherries with us and helping with all the other pie making activities as well.
Elinore picking cherries.
Dylan helps with washing the cherries.
And then he was way happy to squeeze the pits out of the cherries.
And then Elinore made pie (with a yummy chocolate layer in it too). It was delicious with vanilla ice cream!
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