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.
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