Happy Campers

Lake of the Clouds - Porcupine Mountains State Park

We just got back from a week vacation with five of our seven children. I almost don't want to tell where we went because it was so quiet and peaceful and if people find out how wonderful Ontonagon, Michigan is they'll all want to go there for vacation and then it won't be quiet and peaceful any more.

My usual vacation philosophy is to visit anyone we ever knew, try new things, pack each day as full as possible, come home exhausted, and take two weeks to recover.

Keith always said those kinds of vacations were exhausting. To which I usually said, "So?" Vacations aren't about resting and doing nothing. I can rest at home. On vacation I want to be doing something, preferably things I haven't done before.

This year reality trumped my desires. Depleted savings dictated we try Keith's idea of the perfect vacation, which is staying in one place, not doing much of anything, sitting by a lake, and reading a book. 

Turns out he was right. We had a great time. Or to be more honest, we had an 87% good time. 6.5 days out of eight were great, the other 1.5 marred with an argument or two and the fallout of seven imperfect people in close quarters for a week. But all things considered we had a nice time.

I've sung Lake Superior's praises before but we saw a new side of her this week. We live on a bay close to the Apostle Islands so we can always see land across the lake. But in Ontonagon, we were on the open lake and can't see the other side. It's like being at the ocean. Hot sand, long beaches to walk on, waves, driftwood, sea gulls, and sand dunes.

For some reason I've yet to discover, Michigan owns a chunk of land attached to Wisconsin, not Michigan. This "Upper Peninsula" is abbreviated "U.P." and residents are nicknamed, "Yoopers." (U.P. mutated like this - U.P. - pronounced as letters, 'You - Pea' morphed into U-pers and then abandoned all restraint and went straight to "Yooper.") I'm explaining this so if you ever visit Upper Michigan you won't give yourself away as a tourist by asking what a Yooper is.

Ontonagon (pronounced On - tuh - naw - gin - stress on the "On" and let the rest bounce off your tongue) is two hours from our home and located on the western edge of the U.P. 

A friend let us use her empty house that she's trying to sell. At first I had a hard time wrapping my mind around the fact that we'd be staying in an empty house and would need to bring everything. But then I told myself to think of it as a really nice tent. We brought air mattresses, a small folding table, camping chairs, lots of games, and set up housekeeping. 

Erica

The girls loved the cute little house. It worked perfect for us. Kiah walked through it and said, "Now this is the kind of camping I like." I'd much rather sleep in a tent, but I'm not going to lie. Indoor plumbing, electricity, and a working stove and refrigerator were really nice.

The week's highlights included:

Swimming everyday

Watching the sun set over Lake Superior every night

Body surfing at 10:00 at night in their clothes

 Hiking in the Porcupine Mountains State Park

Digging a hole in the sand, roasting Hot 

Dogs and making S'mores on the beach

Umpteen games of Ticket to Ride, a game Andrew and Rachel gave the girls for Christmas. Anna, the stinker, got the high score of the week.

- Watching the movie Soul Surfer on my laptop - 
- Sitting on the beach late at night watching a storm over Lake Superior -

- Day trip to Houghton and Great Sand Bay -

We took tons of pictures and I'm trying to decide how to share about our trip so you won't get tired of hearing about it and your eyes won't glaze over. Keith had us each write about our vacation so in future posts I'll let our family members speak for themselves.

Stay tuned...