Camping Trip 2010

We took an 8 day camping trip for our summer vacation! First we headed to Straits State Park in St. Ignace. It is on the other side of the Mackinac Bridge on Lake Huron. Scott had gone there camping with his family when he was younger. There was a gorgeous view of the bridge! We could actually see it from our campsite! At night, the stars were so amazingly bright and close that I felt like I could reach right up and pluck one out of the sky! I have truly never seen anything like it. Despite the fact that the campground had seen better days (like in the 80s), there was poison ivy everywhere, mosquitoes and spiders were everywhere, there was no playground, and there was no beach (except for painful rocks) - we all had a fantastic time. We took advantage of being somewhere we had never been and did a lot of activities we didn't plan on doing...walking the boardwalk to the lighthouse, having breakfast/lunch at Java Joe's, visitng the Ojibwa Culture Museum (really great)and Father Marquette memorial, climbing Castle Rock, visiting Mackinac City (a couple of times), eating pizza at Mama Mia's and exploring the Mackinac Bridge Museum (including watching the exact same movie Scott had watched when he was younger), having a blast at Colonial Michlamackinac, eating delicious fish and chips at Scalawag's, and driving all the way to Sault St. Marie to see the Soo Locks - for all of about 15 minutes. I think we all had the best time skipping stones and roasting marshmallows.

Next we headed to Pond Hill Farm in Harbor Springs. What a beautiful place - Harbor Springs and the farm! olivia and Ethan loved seeing the month old piglets and running around the place. Scott enjoyed his angus burger. Their cafe had some delicious food - gotta love farm to table eating! Shortly after being there Olivia announced she wanted to be a farmer and Ethan said he wanted to be a "flower garden." It really is a very special place. We then stopped at Harbor Springs and I felt like I was walking into an issue of Midwest Living (one of my absolute favorite magazines)! We had some scrumptious ice cream cones from Kilwin's - worth every penny. Then drove through Petoskey (a little too busy for me - I prefer Harbor Springs).

We finally arrived at our next campground...Young State Park on Lake Charlevoix in Boyne City. What a perfect campground for us - our campsite was close to the bathrooms, there is a beautiful sandy beach, a great playground, fishing pond, and camp store! Scott said on more than once that he wouldn't have minded if we were at Young State Park for the whole time! We spent alot of time at the beach - Olivia loved the water and Ethan loved the sand. We visited Horton bay General Store where Hemingway used to visit, had Kilwin's ice cream again, went out to dinner at Red Messa Grill (which really was featured in Midwest Living Magazine)and had the best sandwich int he world at Lake Street Market. I think we would all agree that our favorite part of Young State Park was the beach and telling stories around the campfire. Ethan would probably say that he also enjoyed his "s'mores" - s'mores(that's what he calls marshmallows)not roasted, chocolate bar broken up, and potato chips. Gotta love that boy!