They Call Us the Great Lake State

Dear Reader,

Michigan is called the Great Lake State for a reason. We have 5 very large (great, even) lakes surrounding our state. We learn to remember their names with the acronym HOMES (Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, Superior). It's pretty awesome.

This weekend my family and I went to Lake Michigan.

The car ride west was exciting with Molly in the backseat. Let's just say, she gets excited about EVERYTHING.

For some geological reason there are sand dunes that line the lake. While they are really cool to look at, they are pretty difficult to climb.

Especially when you're wearing sandals and the sand is hot like fire, swallowing your feet whole. It's painful.

Molly was funny. Every time there was shade she would fall into it and wouldn't want to get up.

She was super excited to get to the beach and have cold sand/rocks to lay on.

Feeling the wind run through her ears.

Our walk back to the car was pretty exciting. We took a different path to see where it would lead (hoping it would get us back to the original trail eventually) and it ended up being...not a direct route back. Let's just put it that way. And it was really hot. So hot that my mom almost got heat stroke, and I wasn't feeling too well either. We forced ourselves to keep walking until we got to some shade.

This tree was our saving grace.

And this was our view as we recovered. We felt like death but at least the lake was pretty.

I know, we're pretty lame. But it was hot. And sand is hard.

At the end of the trip we still wanted to go back to that beach, though, so it wasn't all bad. Adventure is good.

We finished off the day in Kalamazoo with Aunt Robin and Uncle Jim, eating amazing pizza at this restaurant. Yes, it's called Bilbo's. And yes, there were Lord of the Rings references on the menu. I recommend it.