In Michigan (Day 3: heading to Houghton Lake... but first, more dunes!)

 This post begins with a few more moments from our Mackinac day. When we got on to the ferry back to the mainland, I realized I did not have my jean jacket.  At the last possible moment Nat and I decided we might as well try to find in-- it had to be somewhere on the island, after all!- and Steve and Eileen graciously offered to take our kids across without us and meet us for dinner.   After checking the two places I thought I'd left it, we happened to look over at the big community park, where we'd all laid and relaxed for a while.  There was my jacket, laying in the middle of the field.  Completely untouched, right where it'd been left. Back to the ferry, just us two. Like a little, very very windy date.

 Delicious dinner (and yummy beer) at the  Bier du Lac Brewery... and we managed to get back to our house at about 11:00, again.

 Next morning... time to check out of the Roscommon house and head towards the Houghton Lake house and the rest of the family.  Turns out the two properties were only about 20 minutes apart! 

 But because we are who we are... we drove an extra 4 hours round trip to go back to the Lake Michigan Overlook and let Nat and the kids have a chance to hike it all the way down.

A festive, busy atmosphere greeted us, complete with three parasailers who had a great time brushing low over the heads of the gawking crowds. 

 There go my kids, towards the precipice.  The dunes have this way of seeming like you are always just on the precipice of a drop, rather like a ski hill. In fact, there were several people using snowboards to go down!

 I stayed at the top and read a book while Nat and the kids made it all the way to bottom.  Can't tell they are at the bottom of a 450 foot sand dune here...

 You can kind of tell here, but not really how steep it was...

 This boy made it to the top in 25 minutes.  Once he caught his breath he shared his strategy of 25 bear crawls followed by 10 seconds of rest.  The boy loves patterns.

 Nat and Ivy took about 50 minutes to come up and both had lost a bit of love for the dunes by the time they made it...! 
Not me.  An extra hour sitting in the juniper-scented hazy sunshine, watching the happy crowds and all that blue, only cemented the dunes as one of my happy places...

We headed north a few miles to take a dip in the lake at Glen Haven beach.  Cold water and a rocky bottom kept me out of the water but not these two.

We made a quick stop in the Glen Haven general store and then got on our way...

 ... arriving at the Houghton Lake house just in time for dinner.  Eileen whipped up a taco feast and we soaked up the family time...

 Complete with lake views...

 ...campfires and s'mores...

 ...and a sunset view at the local beach.

In Michigan (Day 2- Mackinac Island)

After returning to our AirBnB-a restored 1877 farmhouse in the middle of the state-- at about 11pm, we rallied the next day for a an drive straight north.  Destination- Mackinac Island.

I've been wanting to visit this picturesque spot for a long time, and it did not disappoint.

We decided to drive across Mackinac Bridge so we could at least say we've been to the Upper Peninsula.  The town of St. Ignace had a distinct Canadian feel, and definitely felt like the "last town before the wilderness: a few touristy businesses, lots of Native themed attractions, docks everywhere, and ever-so-slightly run down.  We picnicked by the van and then found the ferry to the island.

 We'd done a "kid swap" for the drive up and our van got the two big boys. We arrived first and had a little time so the boys and I visited the cutest little museum in the world, where they were actually pretty interested and engaged in the Native American Artifacts and stories of the Voyageurs.  Lots of memories of Winnipeg, for me.

Ferry ride!  The kids stood in back by the jets for most of the ride.

Our arrival to the middle of downtown was frenetic and overwhelming. Imagine a movie set, picture perfect buildings in all the right colors and styles, background of blue sky and pines-- but instead of the bustle of a movie crew there was the chaos of hundreds of dazed and awed tourists shuffling through the street, many of them riding bicycles in random directions, interspersed with horse drawn carriages.  Whew.  Amazing and beautiful and a lot to take in.

 We ducked into the first fudge shop we found and had our fill of samples and felt a bit better.

We also went into two more fudge shops.  In the first block.  I have never seen so many fudge shops in my life!  Who needs all that fudge?  Those hundreds of dazed tourists, I guess.

The best decision of the day was to rent bicycles.  Spur of the moment as we'd not planned to bike the island, what with a couple of non-bike-riders in our group.  But the bike rentals we walked by clearly displayed both trailers and tandem bikes-- and were surprising affordable considering the prices for fudge on Main Street.  Within 5 minutes of wandering towards the bicycles, we were all mounted up and off for an adventure.

Ivy had a very positive experience riding a tandem bike with her dad.  Hope for the future!  She *may* actually ride a bike someday!

Jack and Gavin were independent young men of the world, taking off on their own ahead of us.  What a treat to ride on car-free roads!  Though the bike traffic itself was pretty intense in places.  Once we got past Arch Rock,  the horse drawn carriages disappeared and the crowds cleared a bit and we were just surrounded by trees and greenery and the occasional view of shockingly blue water.

Carribean blue, tropical looking water... but far-north Canadian cold!  We dipped our toes in once but never used the swimsuits we toted along in Nat's camera bag.

By the time we'd circumnavigated the island, we were all tired and hungry.  Enter the Watercolor cafe, the cutest little spot that I'm glad we found, even if they did charge $6 for a bowl of Kraft mac'n'cheese.    One does not visit Mackinac for its affordability, after all.

Some time to rest (the grownups) and throw a ball (the boys) at a park and then we were off on a trek to see the Grand Hotel, weaving our way through the picture-perfect back streets, full of historic houses and amazing flower gardens.

Turns out it was quite a walk and by the time we'd made it up the hill all our group had energy for was some ice cream.

We're just going to have to come back.  This little slice of Far North-Tropical paradise is only 7 hours from home.  I'm seeing a grown-ups only long weekend at the Grand Hotel in my future...