Alli: Our vacation started early Friday morning, 4am to be exact. Lucky for us, Jessie and I got to continue our REM cycles until we arrived at our first destination, Holland, MI. We had all seen pictures of the town's famous tulip fields online, but unfortunately we were about a month late and facing a temperature 40 degrees too high. Instead we stopped at Reenders, a local orchard where we picked our own blueberries. After 30 minutes or so of navigating the fields, we drove away with two packages of tasty blueberries, only to have Jessie guzzle down an entire box before the town disappeared from our rearview mirror.
Our next stop was Ludington State Park - which Jessie and I were thrilled to find didn't include a hike! Well, at least not for us anyways. While we both cooled off in the water and tanned on the beach, Dad and his backwater hiking hat took a 4.5 mile hike in the 98 degree heat along the shoreline to the Big Sable Point Lighthouse - which we hear had a very intriguing video. ;) After a couple hours of girl-time we saw the only fully dressed man on the beach appear over the horizon, and knew Dad had returned. Ready to escape the heat, we packed up our stuff and made our way to the local Ponderosa Steakhouse where we did as much people watching as eating.
Dad: While the hike was a bit warm it was well worth the trouble. After paying a $2 fee I went to the top of the lighthouse and enjoyed a beautiful 360 degree view of the park, along with a nice cool lake breeze.
On our way to Traverse City, MI, we took a short detour - a quick visit to Fife Lake, MI to see Dad's aunt Kay and two of his cousins, Eddie and Cynda and her five children, who Jessie and I had never met. We didn't stay for long, only about an hour, but it was nice getting to meet and talk with everybody, and snap a few group photos.
After checking in to our Traverse City hotel and relaxing for an hour and a half we left to eat dinner and make our way to our last destination for the day, sunset over Lake Michigan at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. Thankfully, this stop didn't require too much hiking over the dunes to make it down to the shoreline. As we waited for the sunset to begin (about an hour) we meandered along the beach, looking for Petoskey stones and shells and taking funny pictures. Before we left we also had skipping-stone and rock-throwing competitions - aka the Flintstone Olympics. With the sun disappearing below the horizon, we made our way back to the car, having had a long, but exciting first day of vacation. Much shorter driving day tomorrow and a more relaxing schedule as we only have a couple stops.
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