davidandmarta.blogspot.com: great lakes trip: crystal lake

the last stop on the big vacation (before a restful landing at nana and papa's house) was crystal lake, in northwestern michigan. crystal lake is a shockingly blue and clear lake just a mile inland from lake michigan. we found a super awesome old resort owned by a single family since it was built over a hundred years ago. our accommodations were the little apartment on the side of the main lodge house, atop a hill over looking the lake, and it was perfect! there were cabins in the woods, a beach and clubhouse, tennis courts, and lots of fun to be had. we really needed this kind of a rest after all the go-go-go of the previous 2 weeks. both kids still had a little fever and were pretty tired, and chimney corners was the right thing at the right time.

but before the resting on the beach could start, we had one more thing to do: a stop at the beautiful sleeping bear dunes national lakeshore. it's breathtaking. we drove the interpretative drive through the wooded dunes, climbed a tree that grows out of a dune that is slowly migrating away from the roots,

and we wandered out on the top of the big dune over looking the lakes.

we bought a beautiful picture book about the legend of the sleeping bear dunes (it goes like this: mama bear and her two cubs live happily in the wisconsin woods, but hardship like fire or famine drive them to lake michigan and they swim through the night all the way across the lake, and mama bear makes it but the cubs never do so she curls up on the michigan dunes and cries for them and the spirit of the lake, manitou, raises the drowned cubs up from the water and makes two island so mama bear can see her babies forever). ugh. david and i have both tried heroically to read the book to the kids, and we both cry in that parent way that the kids don't understand. i don't know, you guys. i probably won't ever read it dry-eyed.

aaaaanyway.....

the kids were hot and tired and angry with all that activity and sun exposure and sand, so when we got to crystal lake and found our little apartment, we stayed. we crashed. and we were lucky enough to be there for their weekly family style bbq picnic on the lawn. so. nice. all of it.

the old lodge, and a little lady marching around in a swimsuit

swing on a hill

the lake scene (david and kids, afloat on a raft)

the beach scene (tetherball)

old school playground

and james with milly (the millipede he found, which he referred to as "very tired" but i more accurately referred to as "dead") in a habitat. milly was later put to rest with internment at the edge of the woods. james handled it very well.