Summer days

 This week we celebrated our Independence Day, 4th of July for short. It's considered THE celebration of the summer, THE week of the 4th is the high vacation week for so very many thousands of people in the U.S. and thus the week for crowds, especially if you are in Michigan and headed for the lakeshore (as just about everyone does.)

We did both.  We spent a couple of days this week with our daughter and her clan at their cottage on a smaller inland lake.  It's a perfect jumping off point for the northern Lake Michigan towns.  

The porch is where I would live if this were my place.  I'd never leave this room. And seldom do they.  They eat, relax, read, nap, play games and SIL paints in this space.  When they have friends up the inflatable beds come out and people sleep the night on the porch.

But we also spent a whole day on the lake.  The Lake Michigan beach they found is quite secluded and there might be some people there but never crowds, which considering how many people were in the city, it's a miracle.  That's them way out there.  They said the water was cold but the air was hot so cold water was good.

We spent a day exploring and when you explore you're supposed to stop when you see something interesting.  There isn't supposed to be an agenda or itinerary and you have to be willing to pivot. With us, getting from Point A to Point B is never a straight line and sometimes Point B moves.

Like when we found this little roadside baked goods stand and it happened to be named the same as our girl. How do you pass that up?

And when we saw the Leelanau Cheese Company and stopped and watched them make cheese, peeked into the cheese cave and bought goodies. You have to be prepared when you go exploring and take a cooler with some ice packs for just in case. So we were all set.

We had a couple of lovely summer days celebrating our 4th.