We woke up shortly after six, cleaned up the tent and cooked up some pancakes for breakfast.

The tent was rather soaked from the night’s gentle rainstorm. Thankfully we all stayed dry in the tent throughout the night. I got to take down the wet tent since Scott was cooking breakfast.  I took a wipe bath afterwards to loosen some of the gravel off of me after and Scott thought a picture was required. If you look at the picture of Cody and I at breakfast you can just barely see Brooke’s head just behind mine.  She was taking a rare moment to snuggle with me while I tried to eat, but she refused to smile in a picture for Scott.

First on the agenda was a bike ride to explore the highlights of Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore.  Most of the park didn’t open until eleven, so we had to bike by the sites and photograph from the outside.  The early morning fog was still looming over the lake.  The calm of the lake in the morning sharply contrasted the stormy waves the lake had last night.

After checking out the Coast Guard Station and the Blacksmith Shop we headed to the bike path.  The first sign we encountered cracked us up.  “Hunting Now in Season Wear Bright Colors.”  Um… This should be an interesting bike ride with all of us in dark colors. Turns out no one was up early on this Friday morning hunting.  We rode the path all the way back to the dunes we climbed yesterday. The bike ride and site seeing was an hour and eight miles long.  It was a bit of hard work and yoga positioning for Scott to get all the bikes off the roof, so we had hoped for a little longer of a bike ride, but we decided to head to the beach next instead.

We tried to get a picture of Brooke on the boardwalk. I even hopped out of the spot where she was hiding behind me, but it didn’t work out as well as we hoped.  Cody set to work right away on his favorite tasks, digging and collecting rocks.  The beach was more rock than sand so he was sure to be occupied for days.

Not only did they collect rocks, but they also traded rocks.  It is always fun listening to them justify their trades or lack of trade.  Scott decided to go swimming so Brooke and Cody followed.  Cody never dunked his head, but he did brave the chilly water most of the way.  I dunked myself in quickly before we left.  Cody had nothing to carry rocks back to camp with so he took off his sandals and stuffed them to the brim. I’m pretty sure we are already up to ten pounds in rocks in just three days of vacation.

We had our campsite only until noon.  We literally pulled out at 11:57, moments after the gentleman who got our site next asked if we were planning on leaving anytime soon.

Driving North on I-75 and while I was waiting for a post to upload from the computer off of Scott’s phone’s hotspot I read my book from my phone with no service.  I came across the sentence, “He was a juggernaut of a man.”  I asked Scott if he remembered what a juggernaut was since I couldn’t look it up.  Cody piped up, “Well, what are the words around that word telling you?” Well done to his teachers!  Cody was clearly taught to use context clues to discover the meaning of a word.

We hit the Makinaw Bridge at just about 2pm.

Cody was busy making interesting shapes out of his Sour Patch Kids, more healthy vacation food, and Brooke was busy finishing a new book she couldn’t put down.

We stopped for a quick bathroom break at 3:30.  The gentleman who came out of the boys side right before Cody went in came out shouting, “That was nasty!”  Too funny.  It reminded me of the pit toilets at the condemned campground between the Hiawasee and Ocoee.  The regulars at the campground would smoke while they were in the bathroom just to make it smell better.  I remember I lost my breakfast trying to help one of our kids go to the bathroom and not fall in.  Ever since those pit toilets, pit toilets like this one seem like a sparkling palace.

We are traveling from the, “You are here,” to the red printed Painted Rocks to the northwest.

So we meant to go to a campground about an hour east of where we wound up, but the road that Waze, our navigation app, directed us down Creighton Road which was very clearly blocked and marked as closed. There weren’t many other options of roads to take us north so we wound up in Munising. Luckily Scott caught a National Lakeshore ranger on her way out for the day.  She recommended the campground we wound up at and the Pictured Rocks Cruise we took.

We stayed at the Bay Furnace Campground and got the last site available. We drove through the town of Christmas with two larger than life Santas.  At the campground Cody resumed his duct tape creating.  Scott put up the tent and started on dinner while I went and talked to the camp hostess and paid for the site.  We had two hours to eat and get back to our Painted Rock sunset cruise.

Scott cooked us up some Alfredo noodles and chicken.  The ice cream truck – scratch that – I mean bicycle came by while our dinner was cooking.

The Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore is best viewed by boat and the sunset tour, while slightly chilly and rocky this evening, was incredibly impressive and not to be missed.  The captain gave us a heartfelt caution about the stomach churning water conditions and by the overwhelming scent of cleaning supplies we knew he wasn’t just telling fish tales.  We saw the Painted Rocks in the next few days and nothing compared to the view at sunset.  The sunset tour was from 8 – 10:15.  It was pricey at $45 for each adult and $10 for each child, but again a highlight of the trip.  We all decided it want to see it by kayak someday too.

The first sight was the East Channel Lighthouse on Grand Island. Next we saw the Miner’s Castle and a waterfall.

Brooke was up and down both sets of stairs at least every fifteen minutes.

This tree is an awesome symbol of tenacity.  The nutrients that support the tree flow through roots that used to be supported by rock that has since collapsed.  The tree continues on despite having lost the support for its roots.

Brooke really loved the wake of the boat. She also enjoyed the top level of the boat, but it was rather chilly up top.  The view up top was unmatched though.  If we ever do it again I would have everyone wear more layers and tough out the cold to enjoy the unobstructed beauty.