Wherefore art thou now? Stratford

This really is starting to sound like a travel (b)log, but we're home now, and as I type Jon is in the next room trying to fix the vacuum while Calvin is cavorting in the yard with the rest of the neighborhood hooligans, so I'd say we've finally returned to normal. The laundry is even done.

A few years ago we journeyed through Stratford (Canada, because one does not simply journey through Stratford, England from Michigan) and stopped to see The Pirates of Penzance on the way. It was delightful. The entire experience was delightful, except that the one day was too short. So last year we did it again, seeing Midsummer Nights Dream, and Alice Through the Looking Glass, and adding an extra night. The second trip was even more delightful—we discovered Jenn and Larry's Ice Cream shop, after all, but ran into trouble finding anything more substantial to eat (reservations are a must, everything is overpriced, nothing is foodie style...it's a sore subject).

Then this year we practically perfected the trip. We have our favorite place to stay nailed down, and we visited Jenn and Larry's every day (which doesn't go unnoticed by the owners of a small time shop), and we mostly figured out how to handle meals. For us that meant forgetting about the persnickety restaurants on the main drag and bringing pizza home to the hotel so we could play in the pool. The only thing wanting this year was the weather, but after the camping trip we just had, who's complaining? It was warm enough to swim for at least twenty minutes before blue-lip syndrome set in, not so hot that walking along the river in dress clothes elicited a sweat, and just rainy enough to make things interesting in the evenings. We never even needed our umbrella, but I will say that our Dark Sky App has really come in handy these past couple of weeks.

This year we saw The Adventures of Pericles, Prince of Tyre and The Sound of Music. The first was as spartan as the second was extravagant, and thankfully we saw them in that order, because I imagine doing it the other way around would have been a serious let down. We also were given a very special, two-hour private tour of the Festival Theater, a rare treat that was probably the highlight of the whole trip. Well, that and the ice cream.

Housekeeping had a really good time arranging Calvin's menagerie while we were out...

Tawas Point Lighthouse

If this were to read as proper travel log, there is one last thing from our camping trip that I've left out. In Tawas Point State Park, on the Tawas Point Peninsula, stands a lighthouse. Although it's renovated and well-kept so it looks fairly new, the light is old enough to no longer be standing on the point of the peninsula. See, for as much width as Tawas Point seems to be losing to the lake every year, it is extending its tenuous hold farther out into it instead. Today the lighthouse stands just a little past midway through the peninsula. For this reason, and you can imagine why, they no longer use it as a warning beacon for freighters, but as a guiding light instead. I'm not sure what that means, but I assume the mariners out there do, and they're the only ones in danger of running aground on cantankerously growing peninsulas, so we're all set. I will say, though, that it was of some use in finding our tent on the way back from the bathrooms after dark.

The lighthouse grounds are inside the state park, so if you don't already have the state recreation passport on your license plate, you'd have to pay the entrance fee to visit (so be sure to visit the lake-side beach while you're there, and maybe hike to the point to look for piping plovers, too). If you're staying in the campground the walk is just a pleasant third of a mile. The old oil house is still there, and a small building that, whatever it once was, is today the gift shop. You get your tickets in the gift shop (at your own peril! Look out for such traps as the penny-squishing machine, keychains, and other gewgaws that no one needs but children will beg for mercilessly) and proceed to the house at the bottom of the light for your self guided tour.

The house tour will take you at most ten minutes if you just look, twenty if you read the posted information. The choice is yours. There are plenty of interesting period artifacts and a few books to look through. The second story of the house is off limits to visitors—that is where the "lighthouse keepers" (read: docents) live. An interesting side note: apparently this job is open to any number of people who are willing to pay to do it. You live in the house with its beautiful views for the duration of your "appointment", watching the house and answering questions during its tour hours as best you can. Our neighbors' have family members who have done this for a week every summer.

When you are done touring the house with its five rooms, it's time to get in line to go up the light. This is a spiral metal staircase, the entrance being the same as the exit, so wait times will vary depending on the number of visitors and their agility. There are three landings on the way up and tradition dictates that as you go up, you wait on each landing until the next is free before moving up, staying out of the way of visitors who are coming down. Eventually you make it to the top, which is big enough for the light, the docent, and probably three more people—I know we three fit up there, but Calvin's kind of little. It was a tight squeeze, but the view as beautiful, even with the clouds. Unfortunately there's this big light in the way, but oh well. Go at the right time (just before the 6pm closing time in spring and late summer) and the light will already be on.

Once back outside, enjoy the lovely lake and bay, and be sure to look for frogs.

Week 34, in pictures

Clearly we have gotten away from the daily prompts over the summer. With so much outside beckoning our cameras, who needs a prompt anyway? We'll probably return to them when our imaginations need sparking later in the year.

August 20: size
by Cortney

August 21: through a fence
by Calvin

by Cortney

August 22: intense
by Calvin

by Cortney

August 23: lazy days
by Calvin

by Cortney

August 24: outdoor cooking
by Calvin

by Cortney

August 25: put your feet up
by Cortney

August 26: dog days of summer
by Cortney

Hiking Tawas Point

If cool, wet weather isn't great for beach going or campfires, it does not ring the same death knell for hiking. In fact, it is much easier to be happy and protected from poison ivy, biting flies, and ticks when it is cold enough to warrant the donning of long clothing and multiple layers.

We hiked every day on our camping trip, although some of those hikes might more accurately be called brisk walks. We hiked between rains on our first night, in a brilliant morning sun on our first morning, and in a varying degree of cloud cover every other time.

Tawas Point State Park is a fairly small peninsula, and seemingly shrinking. The park is a little over a mile long, and about a quarter as wide, so even though the trail was not well maintained, and parts of it seemed to be gone altogether, getting lost was neither a problem nor an option. Still, the park is teeming with relatively tame wildlife. There were so many frogs—leopard frogs, to be exact—that walking near any shore caused the ground erupt in leaping. The deer prints were equally plentiful, but it took us until our final day to actually spy a handful of deer. It was also on our last night that we met our first skunk—a very cute baby that was checking out our neighbor's site. Birds were plentiful, of course, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that we'd caught the front end of the fall warbler migration.

leopard frog

leopard frog

common garter snake

common whitetail

greater egret

great blue heron

american toad

cooper's hawk

white-tailed deer

eastern chipmunk

black-throated green warbler (fall plumage)

yellow-rumped warbler (fall plumage)

cape may warbler (fall plumage)

The imperfect vacation

Every Christmas, Jon and I drag out our old DVD collection (assembled some time in the ten years between VHS and streaming) and re-watch all our favorite holiday movies. Favorites like Rudolph make the cut, of course, but one of our favorites is Christmas Vacation. This is the underground classic in which Chevy Chase dreams up the perfect old fashioned family Christmas for his extended family, and then has one thing go wrong after another. In the end, his house is a shambles and all his guests are headed for a hotel, but all is righted again in the end and everyone learns that it's in the imperfection of such an event that we learn the true value of our family and the moments we spend with them.

Not being in retail, I'm not trying to rush Christmas, but the lesson in Christmas Vacation became very real to me last week as we went in pursuit of our annual week of family camping perfection. We struggled first with planning dates this year, finally settling on a week in August, only to have to change our plans at the last minute to accommodate other plans. And as our new date approached, the weather report became uglier and uglier, to the point where we flirted with the idea of cancelling the trip all together. Instead we made a heartbreaking decision and moved our reservations to another Michigan State Park, where the rain was less imminent and the temperatures more promising. Upon arrival, though, they'd lost our reservation, and it didn't take long to learn that Mother Nature breaks her promises easily, and loves nothing more than a good surprise.

All was righted in the end, though. Having no reservation meant we got to pick our site in person, and we ended up with the best site in camp. And though our week was most definitely chilly, it was wet only on occasion, and the rain was never really driving. We enjoyed our games in the tent, were able to make all our meals as planned, even the ones over a campfire, sand can be manipulated even in warmer clothes, and cooler weather is great for hikes. Best of all, we spent the entire week without technology, excepting the up-to-the-minute weather apps on our phones, which I would argue simply helped us work the weather to our advantage.

Our vacation was most definitely not perfect. It was far, far from perfect. At lease Chevy Chase had snow when he wanted snow. But what we had instead of a warm, sunny week on the beach was a week of time together—really, really together. It doesn't get much more together than stuck in a tent hiding from the rain or the cold with nowhere else to go. If you can enjoy those moments, and we did, then you're golden. It's in those moments that we find ourselves and each other; in the games played, the books read, and the discussions had. In the moments between.

Imperfect as it was, our vacation was utterly perfect.

view from our tent

rain before dinner...and after

dinner in the break between rains on day one

evening hike after the rain on day one

a brilliant, if chilly, morning on day two

sand play on the warmest day we had

on the "haunted" beach (Tawas point appears to be losing ground to the lake)

day two dinner

day three, another clear, chilly morning

pancake lunch

a semi-wet evening in town

a serious book discussion on evening four