When in Michigan, You Must Search for Petoskey Stones

 

But first, doughnuts!

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The kids and I walked to Mackinaw Bakery from our hotel, on the way playing the very important game of Whose Beautiful Beach House Would Each of Us Settle For/Let's Criticize Million-Dollar Real Estate While We Pretend Like Our Own Actual House Isn't Literal Garbage. Syd's favorite house is apparently worth 1.3 million dollars, while Will's is upwards of $750,000. I can't seem to shake my trash taste, however, because the house I want is only worth $300,000. It had a nice view, though, and I can always pop over to Syd's mansion whenever I feel like an evening of luxury!

Following Google Map's walking directions instead of driving directions must have thrown us off a little, because somehow, loudly chatting away to each other like huge tourists, we all managed to walk into... the back door of the bakery, I guess? We just walked straight into... a room, clearly a restaurant with tables and chairs and people sitting at those tables and chairs and chatting quietly not like huge tourists, but there was no signage, no hostess or waitstaff, no kitchen or counter. Just people. In a room.

I stopped and tried to get my bearings, the kids bumped into my back and peered around me but had no insights to offer, and we essentially just stood there, blinking in confusion and mild distress until somebody took pity on us and called out that the bakery was around the corner. And indeed, there was a doorway at the back of the room, and it did turn out to lead into a lovely, large bakery, with picture windows showing the parking area outside (oops!), and a million delightful doughnuts and breakfast sandwiches and coffee drinks to choose from.

Hallelujah for the apple fritters, the likes of which I have not seen since I lived in Texas 26 years ago! 

Considering the fact that we all dithered over the doughnut selection, and placed an inconveniently large order that included doughnuts and breakfast sandwiches and drinks both hot and cold, and I spilled some of my iced latte on the floor trying to get the straw in, and Will ordered a peach and mango smoothie and the guy at the counter said they were out of peaches so she ordered a mango smoothie but they were out of mangos, too, I'm pretty sure we were posthumously given the Worst Customers of the Day award, but eventually we emerged unscathed through the front doors, walked back to the hotel, and enjoyed one more breakfast with a beautiful view of the Straits of Mackinac.

Through our hotel window, I mean. Ain't nobody eating breakfast outside with a swarm of midges.

 After breakfast, we packed up and hit the M-119 for the scenic drive along the coast and through the Tunnel of Trees to Petoskey.

The kids were unimpressed by the Tunnel of Trees, but trying to impress a teenager is a sucker's game at the best of times.

Syd was also extremely unimpressed by Petoskey, but to be fair, Petoskey held some of her least-favorite things, including a sky full of sun, a beach full of rocks, absolutely no wi-fi, but lots and lots and LOTS of spiders.

Welcome to Spider Beach: Part Two!

Will and I, on the other hand, were in absolute hog heaven at Sunset Park. We immediately settled in and commenced our search for Petoskey stones.

I felt like I'd done plenty of research on how and where to find Petoskey stones. I know that when they're dry, they resemble limestone (which the kids and I are WELL familiar with!). I know that when they're wet, you can see the corral pattern. 

What I did not know, though, was how easily I'd confuse them with Charlevoix stones. The first few Charlevoix stones I found, I could sort of tell that they weren't quite what I was looking for. The more Charlevoix stones we found, though, the more I convinced myself that surely these must be what I wanted, because they were what we kept finding!

Good thing Charlevoix stones are also really cool, because we ended up with dozens of them--

--and, as far as I can tell before we tumble them all, no Petoskey stones. I am SO BUMMED!

But here's the landscape that we were working with:

So challenging! I wet a ton of stones, and spent a lot of time wading, as well, but never found anything other than horn corrals, brachiopods, and Charlevoix stones:

What I'd really have liked would have been to visit several different sites. I've been told that hiking away down the beach helps, too, as the area gets less picked over the further you go from more heavily trafficked areas. Will would have been totally down for spending the entire day rockhounding with me, but Syd had already spent most of her time at Spider Beach: Part Two curled up under her hoodie on the rocks, desperately trying to tune out her urge to murder me in my sleep by listening to her music, only getting up every now and then to shake off the spiders and settle herself again even more miserably. I almost managed to convince myself that she could just wait in the car while Will and I kept rockhounding, but I really do want her to still talk to me when she's all grown up, so sadly, we admitted defeat in our Petoskey stone hunt and drove on to Traverse City.

I didn't really want to stay in Traverse City, but it was the only place within driving distance of Sleeping Bear Dunes that I could find us a place to sleep that was only 200% of my budget for accomodations on that leg of the trip. Ahem. I also don't really ever want to go BACK to Traverse City, if for no other reason than that the traffic was terrible, but somehow the kids and I managed to fight every red light and confusing turn lane and left turn into cross traffic and unannounced street closing to get back and forth to the grocery store (where score, they stocked Traverse City Whiskey Co. American Cherry, so that's Matt's souvenir all sorted!), so that later we could do this:

Our very wee cottage was just steps from the beach, and included all the tools that we needed to cook hot dogs over the fire. 

Roasted hot dogs tasted SO GOOD after three days of peanut butter and jelly!

Extendable roasting sticks is such a smart idea, and I want a set of my own!

I sampled some of Matt's whiskey, Will drank some of the juice I bought us because I was starting to worry about scurvy, and we read the sun down on our beach:

I'm SO glad we had our beach cookout, even though we were all tired, because the next day I walked out with my coffee and book and peanut butter toast, planning a leisurely little brekkie by the water before gearing up for Sleeping Bear... and the beach was absolutely covered with dead alewives.

And that's why we ate frozen pizza for dinner that night and microwaved hot dogs for the next day's breakfast!

Day 1: Presque Isle Lighthouses

Day 2: Mackinac Island

When in Michigan, You Must Bicycle around Mackinac Island

After leaving the Presque Isle Lighthouses, the kids and I continued up the coast to Mackinaw City. On the way, Syd introduced us to her current favorite podcast:

You apparently have to choose your episodes of this somewhat carefully if you want to be able to continue looking your mother in the face afterwards ("They're filthier when they've got a guest," Syd explained), but I have thought about one bit in the "Would You Rather" episode, the bit in which the guys are trying to figure out if they'd rather be lizards or women and one guy goes off on an absolute rant about how the lizard he used to have lived like a freaking king and maybe thought he was God, probably once an hour since Syd streamed it for me, and every time laughed exactly as hard as I did the first time I heard it. I even tried pulling it up for Matt, but his lack of appreciation makes me feel like it might be one of those inside jokes/group hallucinogenic experiences that you can only fully get if you're on a homeschool road trip.

Speaking of experiences that bring you closer together through nothing but the shared misery of living through it...

You guys, have you ever seen a midge? Because OMG. Back at Presque Isle, we'd noticed a couple of these weird, oddly large insects that buzzed us like mosquitos. They didn't bite, but they did leave a horrifyingly large, fatty stain wherever you swatted them, and we soon figured out to brush them off our clothes if we didn't want to live our lives liberally splashed with midge guts. 

Maybe the spiders were saving us from midges, because when we got to our motel, right on the water and with this beautiful view of the Mackinac Bridge--

--absolute swarms of midges greeted us. We quick-walked with our stuff, mouths firmly closed, to the door of our room, took turns brushing each other off, then opened the door and bolted inside and shut the door behind us. Midges battered themselves against the closed door and windows, and whenever we stepped back outside, they rose up from the white walkway and steps and flew in our faces. \

The motel management left a little box of Hershey's Kisses on the motel bed, next to a typed letter asking us not to smash midges against the walls and ceiling.

The kids had had enough of the day's double hell of constant family time plus midges (not to mention spiders), so they retreated into their screens and flatly refused to come walk on the beach and look at the beautiful views of the Mackinac Bridge with me. 

Their loss, because there were hardly any midges on the beach!

AND there was another lighthouse!

Later, though, Will had successfully put the midges out of her mind enough to agree to come with me to check out the Headlands International Dark Sky Park. Astronomy is one of my favorite hobbies, and I am forever trying to visit a real Dark Sky Park, forever seeking out the skyscape of a childhood spent lying out in the front yard, marveling at the Milky Way and Orion and every satellite and shooting star. 

In the past few years, I actually have visited a few Dark Sky Parks, but the thing is that whenever I go, IT IS ALWAYS CLOUDY! 

Sooo... welcome to sunset at Headlands:

Sigh.

Sunset over the Mackinac Bridge is super pretty, though!

The next morning, we ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for breakfast and packed peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch, and strolled over to the ferry dock, where we arrived in time to catch one of the special ferries that detours UNDER the Mackinac Bridge!

Another lighthouse! Here's the Round Island Passage Light:

Look how fun my Life360 report from that trip is!

My big plans for Mackinac Island were renting bicycles and eating fudge. The end. 

Step One: Bicycles was a go!

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We were 100% the only bicyclists on the island wearing helmets. I do NOT care, though--last winter, Will's pediatrician advised her to wear a helmet while SLEDDING, that's how dangerous head injuries are to those precious, growing brains!

Bicycles turned out to also be the best way to get away from the crowds, the one Mackinac Island tradition that both kids were immediately over the second we stepped off the ferry.

So instead of walking nose-to-butt up and down the main street with all the other tourists, we got to spend a couple of remarkably peaceful hours riding around a remarkably beautiful wonderland:

Will said that she could have happily ridden around the island a second time, it was that fun. 

Step two of the plan: fudge!

I would be very curious to know how fudge became such a quintessential experience, because for the rest of the trip the kids and I played a game entitled Count the Fudge Shops, but nevertheless we took the challenge of Mackinac Island Fudge very seriously, visiting exactly every fudge shop on the island before coming back to the winner, Joann's Fudge. There, Will settled in to ask the assistant for sample after sample, and Syd occupied herself dithering over saltwater taffy varieties:

So, here's a completely embarrassing thing that absolutely haunted us for our entire trip: when Will settled on the college she'll be attending, I obviously had everyone pick out some swag. Because you gotta rep your school, right?!?

The hoodies and zippered sweatshirts that we picked out happened to arrive right before we left for Michigan, so when each person looked at my packing list and saw that I said to pack a sweatshirt or hoodie, each person obviously reached for the nearest sweatshirt or hoodie at hand and packed that one. 

And then it was constantly chilly on the water, so we all put them on. And realized at that moment that we all matched.

Syd's isn't so bad, because you have to really look at her sweatshirt before you see the school seal on it. Will and I, though? Our hoodies both have the name of her college SUPER big on them--ugh, they're so dorky, but I was really excited when I picked mine out, okay? And wearing basically matching billboards meant that so many people came up and spoke to us, and it. Was. Awful.

But when Will bought her fudge and Syd's toffee, she told the cashier that they were a school group--see? Matching school swag!--and she got a 10% discount.

Moral of the story: yes, I probably would gladly suffer that embarrassment again just to save a buck-fifty on tourist candy.

We took our tourist candy back to the shore and settled in for a comfy while (I am LOVING this book series!):

She knocked them down when she was done, because rock stacking does not follow Leave No Trace principles. 

Eventually, though, we temporarily shelved our sugar and headed back to the mainland:

In this photo, Syd is glaring jealously at the OTHER ferry line's ferry, which she thinks looks a lot cooler than our ferry.

No detour under the bridge on the way back, but we did get a nice view of the island:

That evening, after peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for dinner, I was finally able to tempt both kids into a walk out and about with me. We explored the touristy street of downtown Mackinaw City (so much fudge!), then took one last walk on the less-midgey beach at sunset:

Now they've both seen five lighthouses and are well on their way to earning that Lighthouses of Michigan badge!

We made it back to our room with hardly any midge corpse stains on our clothes, that's how good we were getting at midge-dodging!

Day 1: Presque Isle Lighthouses

When in Michigan, You Must Climb a Lighthouse!

I got one last roadschooling field trip with my babies. 

One last adventure incorporated into two kids' homeschool plans. 

One last time earning two Girl Scout badges (Lighthouses of Michigan) and two Girl Scout fun patches (Discover Michigan) by studying for what we'd be sightseeing.

Essentially, one last trotting out of the key word "homeschool" to justify whisking my girls away with me to make magical memories while we let my partner pretend like he has to work, thereby justifying staying home and not doing annoying things like climbing the tallest lighthouse on the Great Lakes that can be climbed by the public.

Here is the New Presque Isle Lighthouse:

It is so tall, and yet so climbable!

Alas for its storied climbability, for the younger kid, the tallest of us, was looking down to watch her feet on those terrifyingly narrow and see-through stairs, and did not notice that the ceiling essentially came down towards those stairs at the top, meaning you had to duck quite low to make it out onto the landing.

She did not duck, and absolutely slammed the top of her head into the ceiling. I'm feeling VERY lucky that she didn't lose consciousness and tumble backwards down those stairs, but man, she hit her head hard. She was hurting even more the next day, the poor kid, like she'd been in a car crash or something. It seriously sucked.

For those of us short enough to not knock ourselves into a concussion at the top of the steps, the view was marvelous and well worth the 113-foot climb:

Here's the lantern room. You can see the original Fresnel lens that used to be visible for over 25 miles away on display inside the light keeper's house:

The light keeper's house also holds some historic ship artifacts:

There's supposed to be a nearby shipwreck that's often visible from shore, so we drove down that little dirt road that you can see in my vista shot, above, and headed out for a hike on what the children soon deemed Spider Beach, Part One:

The shore was so rocky and amazing, paved in a billion interesting rocks and fossils. And underneath every single rock was a spider. Spiders sensed us coming and would skitter between rocks in our path. When we paused to look around, spiders scuttled along on their merry ways around us, emerging from under one rock and scooting under another. 

Pick up a rock, find a spider. Look around, see spiders. Dare to take a beach nap, and you'd surely wake up with your ears full of spiders.

But those spiders must do great maintenance work--look how shallow and clear the water is!

We did not spy the shipwreck, which I was super bummed about and the kids pretty much had to lock arms with me and march me back to the car to keep me from walking just five more spider-lengths to see if maybe the shipwreck was around just one last spider-boulder, but I guess that's what future trips to Michigan will be for. 

Instead, we tiptoed between the spiders back to the car, then drove to the OLD Presque Isle Lighthouse!

This one is only 30 feet tall, and yet the view is even more marvelous:

The Old Presque Lighthouse even has its Fresnel lens in place!

Someone in particular, however, could not be convinced of the marvels of the top walkway, not even after a good pilfering through my first aid kit for Ibuprofen. She preferred the view from the other end of the lighthouse:

Probably just as well for my darling who does not love heights, because this staircase was somehow even steeper than the last:

The beach here was even lovelier, even shallower and more interestingly rocky, though still quite chock-full of spiders:

The kids both refused to put their noses up against a spider's, the better to identify it in our nature guidebook, and therefore they both failed the Practical Arachnology component of their Discover Michigan fun patches, but they did find other lovely natural wonders to look at:

Gneiss rock!

I even got the younger kid's picture with the definitely haunted statue of Patrick Garrity, Sr., a former light keeper who's now lighthouse famous, so we'll have a lot of fun when he comes crawling out of the photo one night and, I don't know, shines bright lights into our sleeping faces?

Anyway, that's a problem for another time. Now, on to Mackinac Island!

P.S. Want to follow along with my craft projects, books I'm reading, road trips to weird old cemeteries, looming mid-life crisis, and other various adventures on the daily? Find me on my Craft Knife Facebook page!