our second day in the general vicinity of sleeping bear dunes national lakeshore started with some time on the water. initially we had planned a trip with one outfitter, but when we arrived, it turned out they were closed. thankfully, we found another spot, and while derek handled booking the trip and the shuttle bus to drop off the van, the rest of us explored the gift shop. little did i know that taking this pic of the bin of polished rocks, a common gift shop tourist money grab, would lead to three weeks of obsessively pointing them out at every stop.
for our days watery adventure, we briefly considered kayaks, but settled on a big fat flat bottomed raft. this was not a great decision. we piled in and began our ill fated journey along the platte river.
things started off ok. we cruised down a narrow section of the river. everyone was in decent spirits.
then we hit what can only be described as a lake. a still. slow. deep. lake. and it was windy. so it took a LOT of work to get our boat across that thing. and tensions ran high. and people got miserable.
eventually, we made it to the other side. and survived to tell the tale. but it will be talked about in our family lore for decades to come. also, if you’re wondering. anna was useless. she mostly lounged and offered color commentary, occasionally deejayed, sometimes complained, did some sunbathing, and briefly offered steering help.
i’m gonna let you guess which kid was bitter about having to provide substantial rowing forces and which kid got off the hook mostly so was in high spirits when the opportunity to hop out and wade around a bit presented itself.
everyone was ecstatic to get that boat out of the water (before it rolled into lake michigan). grabbed some food from the car and had ourselves a little picnic lunch. look at those happy (relieved) faces.
our second stop of the day was the point betsie light house. we are always fans of lighthouses, particularly the ones we can climb to the top of.
just down from the lighthouse, there was some beach access, so we needed to check that out.
but, our schedule was a little tight, and included hitting a laundromat, so we relocated the kids (and me) to a new sandier beach, and derek and ike handled laundry duty. it was lovely and relaxing. but short lived. the moment the laundry was dry we were off to new cool things…
