Sometimes my favorite sort of day is a grey day. Quiet and lethargic, grey days suite me very well. In the summertime when we have a grey day, I am particularly happy because it reminds me that winter will be here soon enough. 

And the cold, snowy, curl your toes under an afghan and sip on hot cocoa type grey day is my favorite.

As a little girl, I had this awesome “reading” poster on my bedroom wall of Molly McIntire curled up on a chair in a flannel shirt and cuffed jeans reading a book. Outside of her window, it poured rain and the sky was dismally grey. The text below said “The timeless pastime of American Girls” (reading, that is). If you don’t know who Molly McIntire is, well, take a moment and educate yourself.

I loved that poster. I longed for days when I looked out the window to see the same grey day that Molly had. Now, along with longing for those grey days, I hope that said grey day will come at a time when I can actually curl up with a good book. Most of the time, whether it’s a grey or sunny day, my to-do list is too long to do what Molly does.

If I’m not on the elliptical, flying in a plane, or soaking the rays on the beach, I don’t exactly read anymore. Not “sit on the computer and read blog posts” reading. Not “cnn.com articles that Alex leaves up for me on the laptop” reading. I mean “really dig your soul into a hardback book until you reach the very last page” reading. Yes, I can’t remember the last time I read like Molly McIntire.

Better yet, I can’t remember the last time I spent an entire grey day doing grey day worthy activities. There’s always a prescription to pick up, laundry to fold, a bill to pay…. oh it goes on and on. I don’t like it.

I hope you have grey days. In fact, I hope the next grey day you have can be filled with grey day worthy activities. Perhaps where you live, and what you do, makes it easier than it is for me. If that is the case, have a grey day for me. Just, please, do me a favor and don’t read 50 Shades of Grey on that particular day. I like Southern Gothic literature the best.

Perhaps I’ll have a grey day soon, too. You’ll find me in my worn-out leather chair reading To Kill a Mockingbird for the millionth time. Hardback version, not on the Kindle. Until then, here’s hoping you look out your window and see the color grey.

P.S. These photos were taken in Ludington, Michigan. This pier holds a very special place in my heart. Every summer evening while at our cottage, we’d come into town with my Grandpa Colin to watch the S.S. Badger unload it’s Wisconsin visitors and head back on its’ way across Lake Michigan. Then, we could go get dinner. Nowadays, it takes a grey day to slow our family down enough to wait for the S.S. Badger. Grandpa Colin has dementia now, but he still remembers our visits to the pier. Some things are just impossible to forget.

*Filed under Personal Life and Wanderlust Life*

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• american girls
• books
• grey
• lake michigan
• ludington
• musings
• reading
• fabulous adventures

As the season draws to a close, I can’t help but feel grateful. It’s been decades since I was able to spend so much time up north in Michigan. My best friend, Katie, was home from her tour in Jordan, allowing for face time unlike anything we’ve been able to do in years. I have plenty of complaints about working in education, but I’m reminded how fortunate I am, at least for now, that I can spend this time every summer to unwind and go back to my roots.

It’s no secret that I feel restless in my current location. The weight of the DC metro lifestyle pushes down on my spirit daily. This is not the place for me the thrive. However, this is where I am. This is where I will be. For now. And, until that changes, family visits and road trips to Michigan will do just fine. 

We’re spread all over the continent these days; rarely ever in one place at one time. But we’ll always have Michigan. After all, in my family, no one gets left behind.

Or forgotten.

• Tags
• family
• lake michigan
• traverse city
• michigan
• vacation
• beach
• road trips

There’s something you should know about me. I’m terrified of big waves.

Don’t get me wrong. I love the way they crash into the shoreline. I love the surf. I love the curl of the whitecaps right before they come collapsing down. I love the sound of rushing water. They sure do look beautiful from my beach towel on shore. But I’m terrified.

If you’ve read this blog in the slightest, you may know that I had the pleasure of spending my entire childhood traveling to Cocoa Beach, Florida in between jaunts up to our family cottage on Lake Michigan. My dad worked on Hubble Space Telescope, which meant that if we wanted to see him, we had to trek down to sunny Florida for shuttle launches, shuttle prep and everything in between. In those early years of Cocoa Beach, I became quite the boogie board pro. (I should take the opportunity to thank my sponsor, Ron Jon Surf Shop.) I loved riding those waves. But here’s the deal, it’s pretty easy to leave your fear on the coastline when you’ve got your daddy holding onto your board, releasing you onto the perrrrrrffecccct wave. Then, we’d take our boogie boards north to Lake Michigan for the summer. More perfect waves, this time unsalted (as Lake Michigan is a gazillion times better than the Atlantic Ocean).

So here’s my shameful, grown-up truth. I don’t like those big waves when I’m standing there alone, daddy-less. If they don’t knock me over, they will surely push my bathing suit in all sorts of uncomfortable, revealing ways. The way they swell, yards in front of me, smooth and quiet the way the best of predators hunts… no, it’s not for me. Oh, and that undertoe- people die from that, you know? Holds you under ‘til you drown.

Occasionally, I catch myself in the middle of a weather pattern change. Out there, chilling on the sandbar relaxing in the inner tube, most likely with a beverage in hand. And then, wham, the wind picks up and I’m out there moaning like a baby, trying to dodge the big waves. I’m not made for these things. And as I paddle and kick my way in, those waves keep on kicking my butt, literally, stripping me of my humility (and my bikini) as I run for the shore, attempting to save whatever is left of my dignity.

So, on days when I wander down from the cottage to see the lake looking like this:

I will nonchalantly tell you I’m really deep in the good part of my current read and I’ll stay on the beach doing this:

and bronzing like a goddess in ways such as this:

(which is the true reason for a beach anyway, right?).

*Filed under Wanderlust Life*

• Tags
• lake michigan
• waves
• water
• ocean
• boogie board
• surfing
• vacation
• road trips

The rythym of the waves crashing the wake play music to my motions. Slowed by the sand bar, distinguishable by it’s emerald green color a few yards out, the water moves gently enough to provide a surface, yet lively enough to offer a challenge in my game of skipping stones.

There are two walks we can take at the cottage. We can head south, toward the outlet. That walk will take us past the beautiful new cape cod a few doors down, welcomed to the neighborhood but looking quite out of place between the A-frames and rustic lodges we are used to. We’ll also pass a washed up log. This log seems to stay year after year, resting on the beach, marking the halfway point between the cottage and the outlet. Or, we can head north, toward the lighthouse, toward the cliff. In the distance you’ll see S.S. Badger departing from port, smokestacks puffing in the sunset. The closer we get to our destination, the steeper the staircases, higher into the clouds the homes, and the thicker the grasses.

Today, we’ll head south. The sun sets behind us. Sinking into the sand, our toes warm with every step through the tide. I can only make the stone skip when you aren’t looking. Otherwise, it’s a waste of a good skipping stone; you know, the medium sized, flat along every surface, perfect stone that, when in the right hand, can skip into the horizon. I, on the other hand, will skip it 3 or 4 times if I’m lucky. Every once in awhile I’ll get a few mini-hops in at the end to constitute 5 to 7 hops. Still, you can’t watch… I’ll surely sink it straight into the wave if you are looking.

We walk in stride, heads down in search of more skipping stones. You are the king of skipping stones. Perfect form, perfect hops across the edge of the water. We talk about what makes us happy, about how relaxed we are, about moving “up north”. As the sun drops closer to the lake, I’m glad for long sleeves and the warm water. The sun takes the summer heat with it every night.

We turn for home when the sky turns dark. The last ones on the beach, the only sounds are that of the crashing waves and our shuffling toes in the sand. There are new stones washed ashore. New stories to be told. So we walk slow. Just you, me and our skipping stones.

*Filed under Wanderlust Life and Married Life*

• Tags
• beach
• lake michigan
• newlywed life
• road trips
• skipping stones
• sunset
• vacation
• walks
• fabulous adventures

Because I spent the entire day in the car, I feel like today should be considered Friday. I hope you don’t mind.

First off, Dear truck driver on I-70, next time you want to catch your truck on fire, think about the thousands of commuters and travelers you will inconvenience. Being completely stopped on the highway 10 hours into our drive home is not my idea of a practical joke. Nor is adding 2 hours to our already long drive. I’m not amused.

Dear Pam from Our Love Nest, Sando from The Daily Deelight, Brie from Recipe for a Beautiful Life, Nadine from Back East Blonde, and Rachel from The Random Writings of Rachel, thank you for being awesome guest post bloggers this week! I owe you all big time!

Dear Lake Michigan, You’ve always been my first home. I never want to leave but, you see, I’ve left my life down here in Maryland. You understand, right?

Dear Readers, stay tuned. I’ve got material unlike anything before from this trip and I can’t wait to share it! (after I unpack and catch up on sleep)

• Tags
• Friday's letters
• lake michigan
• vacation
• road trip

It was a real downer in the memory department. The glitz and glamour of a childhood memory squashed to smithereens. The sunsoaked laughter and rippling waves upon the shore blown apart by reality. Some things are better left in childhood memoryland, not revisited.

Last week while visiting my mom in northern Michigan, Alex and I were trying to plan a trip of sorts for our last day. With great enthusiasm and happy-memory filled exuberance, I suggested we go to Sleeping Bear. Well, in case you’ve been living under a rock for the past year, this is Sleeping Bear:

And before it made national news as Good Morning America’s Most Beautiful Place in America, it lived in a corner of my mind reserved for the happiest, shiniest memories from being a kid. The memory glistened in summer sunlight, the waves of Lake Michigan crashing below as I stood atop a gigantic sand dune. I run to catch up with my feet as my body tumbles down the side of the steep dune, laughing and carrying on until I reach the bottom and splash effortlessly into the water. Then, I trudge slowly back up the dune, careful and with several rests, to the tip top of the dune to do it all over again. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Well, apparently I have altered this happy moment of my past greatly because this is not what Sleeping Bear Sand Dunes are. And poor Alex had to actively participate in my sad realization last week. In reality, it is not one, steep sand dune that takes you to the glorious waters of Lake Michigan but dozens of steep sand dunes. As you begin your journey, you cannot see Lake Michigan at the summit of the dune. Or the next. Forget about it. You’ll have to ascend dune after dune, trudging along in the unforgiving heat without any respite of shade (these are sand dunes, after all). And finally, after climbing uphill, dune after dune for a miserable eternity of 45 minutes, you will see Lake Michigan in the distance. The distance. Did you catch that? Up and down, up and down you climb, each time hoping that the summit will surprise you with the water down below, but my joyous memories deceive me and we continue along, conserving our water because guess what? Once we make it to the Lake, we’ll still have to climb back. Uphill, both ways.

What were my parents thinking? Or, better yet, What kind of kid actually remembers this as a HAPPY memory?

We made it. It is gorgeous. Lake Michigan has the glistening splendor of natural remarkable beauty. We had our picnic, rehydrated and worked on our sunburns. The gentle breeze calmed our muscles and the cool, refreshing water never before looked so clear. It truly is the most beautiful place in America. But it is too damn hard to get here.

Off we went into the Sahara Desert of America once again, fighting off heat exhaustion, blisters and dehydration. When we finally made it to the last hill, where we could see the parking lot down at the bottom, I began to realize the distortion of my memory. Sure, I ran happily down a dune. But Lake Michigan wasn’t at the bottom. It must’ve been the solace of an air conditioned car, ready to take me  away. Yes, this must be the real memory.

And next time, we’re taking a dune buggy.

We’ve only just begun. In the background, that’s a tiny little lake on the other side of the parking lot. Ahead of us are several dunes. We have no reason to be smiling…

Hiking a little further into the middle of nowhere…

Every hilltop had the magical power of making us think that maybe, just maybe, it would be our last.

Until finally, we saw Lake Michigan… so. far. away.

And then, about 20 long, terrible minutes later, I cried out in serious relief when we saw this:

Welcome to Lake Michigan, you made it across the sand dunes!

Yes, it’s beautiful. The most beautiful place in America! But you’ve already forgotten our car is an hour hike back, uphill both ways, in sand. I suppose it’s like a hazing ritual. Now, Alex has become a true Michigander. He’s survived Sleeping Bear. And forget the dune buggy, the next time I want to catch some rays on Lake Michigan, I’m doing it from the comfort of our cottage, where it’s a short walk down the steps to the beach:

*Filed under Social Life and Personal Life*

• Tags
• beach
• hiking
• lake michigan
• sand dunes
• sleeping bear
• teachings
• outings