A family vacation in Northern Michigan
While sometimes it can seem a little silly to share family vacation photos year after year — in the same locations, with essentially the same activities, kids just aged up a bit — I was so encouraged by your comments on this month’s TCF free edition, In Praise of the Non-Optimized Vacation. Specifically, Brittany wrote: “As someone who has followed the blog for years and who is on the cusp of marriage and building a family, the way you’ve portrayed family vacations has always inspired me.” Well, Brittany (and other friends), how could I not share this year’s trip with that encouragement?
Here, then, are a few snaps from our time in Northern Michigan this July. A little bit of background for those who are new or hoping to plan a trip:
John’s extended family owns a house on a small lake near Beulah, MI. It’s not quite big enough to fit all 15 of our immediate-extended family (parents, siblings, nieces and nephews), so we rent a nearby house (or houses) to sleep and eat a few meals at and then spend our days with the rest of the family at the family house, which is lakefront. This year, we stayed in this rental and it was wonderful.
Our days are mostly spent on or next to the lake: reading, chatting, taking out kayaks or paddle boards, waterskiing and tubing, playing corn hole, digging in the sand of the small “beach,” wading out to the float for more chatting.
If we venture away from the lake, here are a few things we like to do:
— Hike the Sleeping Bear Dunes or drive Pierce Stocking to explore the scenic pull-offs
— Glen Arbor: eat and shop at Cherry Republic, shop at M22 and Cottonseed Apparel
— Frankfort: play pickle ball, browse the shops, jump off the jetty, play beach volleyball
— Beulah/Honor: catch a movie at the Cherry Bowl drive-in theater, eat at The Cherry Hut, get ice cream at Riverside, tube down the Platte River, play at the river mouth where it meets Lake Michigan, eat at Five Shores Brewing, eat and drink on the lawn at St. Ambrose Cellars
— Traverse City: go to a Traverse City Pit Spitters (summer league) baseball game, eat a farm-to-table dinner at Farm Club
And now, here are a few photos of us doing most of those things :)
I know this post is light on the details, so if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask! You can also check out my past posts about Michigan below:
Thanks, as always, for letting me share, friends!
