Wilderness State Park

We ventured out a little further than our "usual" 4th of July destination, since we had a few extra days to camp this year.

We hopped in the truck and drove 5 hours north to Wilderness State Park...a delightful little haven tucked away on a calm, clear, Lake Michigan bay on the northern tip of the Lower peninsula, about 10 miles west of the Mackinaw bridge
.

Happy to be out of the truck!

The first afternoon after setting up, we hit the beach right away, because it was HOT and muggy!

I sat in my new little beach chair and enjoyed the view...

Stella, happy as clam after getting buried...

Ellery was easily coaxed to do naughty things to give us a few chuckles.

Naturally since I had already given this trip my stamp of approval, the power was out in the entire campground when we returned from the beach.  It came back eventually,  and we were all advised to turn down the ac :)

Early the next morning we awoke to a thunderstorm, loud shrieking from the people in the tent next door, and the sad sound of our fan slowing down to a sputter as the power once again went out.

When we were all up and huddled under the canopy of the trailer out of the rain, I convinced Tim to drive us into town for a coffee and donuts. When we arrived back, the sun was shining, power was restored, I had a coffee in hand...and we were ready to conquer the day.  Thankfully that was the extent of our troubles, not bad!

We once again enjoyed the beach, took a bike ride, played many rounds of Uno, played bean bag toss, enjoyed many magazines courtesy the camground library via Syd, an interactive demonstration on bats, and a very highly anticipated 7pm campgroundwide game of kickball.

Ha.  Tim and I were the only adults that played, and it became clear early on that this wasn't a competitive bunch.

The next day we got on the ferry and went over to Mackinaw Island for the day.

We enjoyed touring Fort Mackinac.

We hiked over to Arch Rock.

We got fudge, and I went in the shop and conquered my fears!

The last time Tim and I went to Mackinaw was about 15 years ago. 

We had biked and hiked all day, and by the time we visited the hot, crowded, overly sweet smelling fudge shop, I was spent.  I stepped outside to get some air while Tim paid, and fainted...knocking over a line of bikes, and landing inches from horse doo when I went down. 

We had ice cream, naturally :)

The next day we attempted a hike, but it just wasn't going to happen, so we did some more of the same! All in all it was a great trip!