My favorite vacation spot...

suggested by Work at Home Musings

"What is your favorite vacation spot? Why?"

Without a doubt, it's South Manitou Island, part of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. According to Native American legend, a raging forest fire in Wisconsin drove a mother bear and her two bear cubs into the lake, where they swam toward Michigan. The mother bear reached shore and climbed to the top of a high bluff to await the arrival of the bear cubs, but the cubs had tired and could swim no longer. They drowned within sight of the shore. The Great Spirit Manitou created two islands to mark the spot where the bear cubs drowned, and then created the solitary dune to represent the mother bear.

South Manitou Island lies about 17 miles offshore and is accessible by private boat, or passenger ferry. Don't plan on finding any modern amenities when you arrive at the island, however. Whatever you're going to need, you'd better bring yourself. Forget electronic devices if you plan to stay for long...once they're dead, you won't be able to recharge them ;-) You have your choice of three campgrounds to backpack to. We camped at Weather Station Campground, about a 1.5 mile hike from the dock. It lies on the southern end of the island and overlooks the Manitou Passage and Sleeping Bear Dunes. The sunrises and sunsets out over the open water are spectacular. The peace and quiet is awesome. When you disconnect from all distractions, your mind is so much more open to God as he speaks to you. Nature, God's second book, is abundant, from plants and flowers below, to virgin white cedar above. With no artificial light for miles around, the night sky shines with unforgettable clarity. There are unique features to the island. There are no deer on the island, so plant life exhists in a way not found where there are deer grazing on it. Twelve species of orchids can be found on the island. There are no skunks, porcupines, or red squirrels on the island, tho an abundance of chipmunks makes up for the lack of squirrels. Only one species of mouse, the woodland deer mouse, is found on the island. Snowshoe hares are found on South Manitou Island, but not on neighboring North Manitou Island.

Things to do while staying on South Manitou Island include a variety of hikes to see various natural features of the island; visiting the village (now used as housing for staff and volunteers) and museum, climbing the 117 steps of the lighthouse, visiting the old one-room schoolhouse and the cemetery where many of the island's early settlers rest awaiting Jesus' 2nd Coming. Longer hikes will take you to see the cedar forest, a shipwreck on the shoreline (the Francisco Morazon, which ran aground during a November storm in 1960), or the bluffs, the highest point on the island, from which you have a 360 degree view of Lake Michigan. There's also the ambitious 10-mile hike around the island on the beach, should you wish to tackle it.

I recommend bringing hearty food, and a good book or two to enjoy while you're relaxing in the peace and solitude.

Vacation Favorites

Here are a few of my favorite pictures (not already blogged, that is!) from our recent camping trip:

Yep, that's me. On a zip line. Awesome!

Nope, that's not me on the climbing wall. I chose the inside steps to ascend the 40' tower for a gorgeous view of the Straits of Mackinac, as pictured below (except this photo was taken from the lighthouse!) DD11 made it to the top, tho!


Old Mackinaw Point Lighthouse

Oh no, don't run in to each other!!!! Yikes! Whew, they're just going to pass in the St. Mary's River, but it sure looks close, doesn't it?

Me 'n my Honey

Breakfast in the camper. We never starve on vacation ;-)

Our favorite ship, the Edwin H. Gott, 1005 feet long. I don't know why, but somehow this ship has become our signature ship. Vacation is always better when we see our ship!

Trip to the Agawa Pictograph Site

We took an afternoon trip to view the Agawa Pictograph Site, which is about 110 km northwest of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. DH and I have circled Lake Superior, probably 15 years ago, and we had visited this site at that time. I'd forgotten how rugged the northern Ontario wilderness becomes as soon as you leave the city. It's a gorgeous drive...a mixture of Lake Superior vistas, rocky gorges, sand flats, and just plain wilderness. The colors are starting to change...some reds and purples but no oranges, yellows, or browns yet. The scenery was worth the drive, even if we hadn't had an interesting destination!

Anyway, this was where we were headed. Yes, that is Lake Superior, the largest freshwater lake in the world. Yes, it's cold. No, we didn't get our feet wet. This time! Yes, that is a very narrow rocky ledge that we had to walk out on in order to see the pictographs. Yes, it was scary. Yes, it was windy. Yes, the wind made you feel like you had to hug the rock cliff!



Interestingly enough, when we last visited the pictographs, we were not up close and personal. We walked out on these rocks and because we were farther away, the pictographs were pretty hard to see! I like the "up close and personal" version of 2008 much better. Yay for higher lake levels! But I get ahead of myself a bit.

This was the hike down toward the lakeshore.


Yikes, I really hope these rock walls don't move anytime soon, LOL. The rock wedged across the top is HUGE, and it's hard to see in the pic, but Lake Superior's waves are crashing into the opening and there is wave action up into the canyon.


Along the way, I noticed this moss-covered rock, with a blanket of ferns growing out of the moss! Interesting!


These are some of the small (and not-so-small, one of them has several houses on it) islands in Lake Superior, adjacent to the pictographs site. Some of the rocky outcroppings were believed by the First Nation People to be the shape of the spirit of the devils that controlled the lake.


And finally, the pictographs. We Had to climb down to the rocks at the base of the cliff, and then hug the cliff wall as we inched our way along to see the paintings. The paint was made from a mixture of ochre (from iron-rich rocks found on an island about 30 km away from the cliff) and animal fat. Sometimes it's hard to tell where a pictograph ends and the rock's natural red coloring begins. There are some non-descript red markings that look as tho once upon a time they may have been pictographs, but they have faded too much to know or sure.

DS6 sits next to two snake pictographs.


Pictograph of four canoes, probably commemorating a battle expedition in the late 1600s.


Another canoe.


Misshepezhieu, the devil spirit of the lake.


Horse and rider above a canoe and 4 discs, which are variously believed to be 4 suns, or that the chief who drew that pictograph belonged to the 4th order of the Midewiwin Lodge.


This was the path back out of the site. You didn't think the climb UP was going to be any easier than the climb DOWN, did you, LOL?

We're home from vacation!

I know, I'm neglecting my poor blog again ;-) So here's the long-awaited photo update to show a bit of what we did on vacation.


Here's ds5 playing Legos with Auntie (dh's younger sister, with whom we stayed)

And here he is, sleeping. I went to wake him up one morning and couldn't even find him--there was just a pile of blankets on his air mattress. I thought he was in bed with Auntie, but he wasn't. Finally I found him under his pillow and blankie--he was so zonked he didn't even hear me take the picture!

We got to visit dh's two sons who live on the East Coast, and meet the rest of the family that we hadn't met yet. Here is oldest brother with his 3 y/o twins, and of course my kids.

One of the highlights of our trip was attending one of the last performances of Beauty and the Beast on Broadway. The show ended a week after we saw it! DS5 professed to not like the show--except of course when Gaston met his demise--but every time some techno-trick happened onstage, he was all eyes and ears and wanting to know how they did that, plus counting how many spotlights might be shining on a particular actor at a particular time, and of course, figuring out all of the colored lights! He didn't wiggle and squirm a whole lot, so I'm thinking he enjoyed it more than he let in ;-) Here are my kids and their little cousins in front of the stage door with the poster.

Another highlight was the trip dd10 and I took to American Girl Place, on her 10th birthday. We even did it all by ourselves--no daddy, no other relatives! We took the bus into the city, and then walked the 10 or so blocks from the Port Authority bus station, over to the store. And it wasn't even scary for us country bumpkins ;-) DD got her doll's hair styled, and bought a couple of small things for ds5 (lip gloss and a bath puff) with her money, and then I spent money on her for her birthday. She bought 4 outfits, 2 pairs of shoes, and a few other things--and then dh called and said to spend a bit of money on his debit card as well, so she got to pick out an outfit for herself to match what she'd gotten her doll. We attended "Circle of Friends," their stage-show musical, and also had lunch in the cafe. It was a wonderful, fun day. Here's a pic of us at the cafe.

At the Ben Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, there were many learning experiences, including a huge model of the human heart that you could go through, a lifesaving trainer, dissections, and lots of other fun stuff. There was also an electricity exhibit with lots of self-powered generators. Here ds5 is turning one of the many cranks he turned that day, to make something light up or move! After that, is dd10 in her new job. She's been hired as a telegraph operator. Now to brush up on those Morse Code skills ;-)

The King Tut exhibit was in this same museum, but of course, you can't take any pictures there--what a shame :-( I'll have to steal my grandpa's DVD of the exhibit when I want a refresher. Suffice it to say, the exhibit is fabulous! What a wonderful collection of antiquity. The displays were labelled well, so I could explain even to a 5 y/o what most of the artifacts were. He was most interested in anything that had gold in it ;-) He also was impressed by the two oldest trumpets in the world. And, having just read the Biblical account of Moses and the 10 plagues, he liked seeing Pharoah's sword and imagining that it might have been like what the Pharoah in Moses' time also had.

We visited the ocean one sunny warm afternoon. Gorgeous day but the surf was high--probably 4-6' waves breaking at shore, and the rip tide has been dangerous all summer. SIL actually broke a bone in her foot! A wave knocked her down, and as she was trying to get up, another wave hit her and hyperextended her foot and cracked a little bone behind her 3rd toe. Ouch! So now she's in a cast and her summer in the pool isn't happening the way she intended ;-)

Another day on the water was spent visiting the Statue of Liberty. A word of warning--you can't just go to the island and go into the Lady anymore! You have to have a pass to get in to her, and that pass has to be reserved 2-10 days prior to your visit! We didn't know, so we didn't go in. Oh well, it was a nice day for a boat ride, and we had a great walk around the island.

I don't have pics of our messed up hotel reservation, but a word of warning to the wise--don't book if you're talking to an operator in a Third World country!!! I booked thru Yahoo Travel, which uses Travelocity, and they booked me into a hotel 1.5 hrs away from where I wanted to be! Needless to say, we were NOT happy campers over that screw-up. Added to that, when we got home, I discovered that they charged me for cancelling the reservation, even tho it was their mistake, so I now have to wait up to 14 days to get my money back! You wouldn't need a pic of that--just think of a teapot steaming, that would be me, LOL. And now you've been warned.

That's the nutshell version--the rest would be way too long for a blog. Maybe next time I'll blog daily, LOL.