It all began with Glo serving a mission in CA.
John said to me, "Let's celebrate our anniversary by going to California for a week and see Glo."
Hmm. Maybe it started a year ago (to the day almost) when he lost his job. Yes, he has a lot of free time at the moment, and can drop everything and go anywhere at any time...for a week at a time.
Okay, maybe it started before then.
Maybe it started 30 years ago when John married me.
Whatever the reason, I was NOT going to surprise Glo and drop in and see her (and seeing all the fires that are erupting all over CA at the moment, including near Santa Rosa today, I'm kind of glad we didn't make that plan). Plus, who did he think was going to plan that trip?
But John was determined that we celebrate. I didn't want to unless we did the big party with friends and the kids that I had wanted to have, but we don't have the money to do that, and a dark cloud of stress and bad emails and worrisome phone calls always hangs over us and inevitably that cloud releases torrents of rain whenever I'm trying to forget that it's there.
So I knew I had to do something. I needed to keep it close to home so that we didn't have to spend a lot of money, and so that I could process any bad news we received along the way, and I needed to keep it simple.
All anyone has to do is subscribe to one of the many Michigan social media/news sites to see all that Michigan has to offer any specific week or weekend, and for the past couple of years, I've really wanted to do either the waterfalls in the UP, or the lighthouses along the shore.
Considering snow is a possibility in the UP now, and it's major driving to get there, I kicked it into gear to plan a trip to see the lighthouses (although not without threatening John that I needed to cancel the trip because he wouldn't give me three hours of uninterrupted time to plan the trip. Yeah, he turned on Netflix...but kept me within his sight...)
It wasn't hard. Michigan has over 1,000 lighthouses (yes, that comma is in the right place). All I had to do was search "the top ten lighthouses in Michigan" and I had a start. As Rebecca said afterwards, it was one of those itineraries--things planned down to the half hour so that all runs smoothly and we can see everything we want to see. Our family likes that kind of trip, although I know other people do not.
And I kid you not, it was awesome. In fact, halfway through the trip, I told John that it would be one of those trips that we would always remember.
The itinerary started with us leaving at 7 a.m. on Thursday morning. That doesn't mean start to take things out of the car then--it means the key is in the ignition, and the door had better be locked, because there's no going back!
There was one small hiccup though. For the past two weeks, I had been in denial that I was getting a sinus infection, hoping once again that it would just go away (seriously, when will I learn that this is NEVER the case). When I woke up, I was in full-blown sinus infection mode...and we currently have no health insurance. So while I drove out to St. Joseph, John got on the phone with the pharmacist at CVS in that tiny town and priced out steroids and an antibiotic for me. I never fail to acknowledge that having a doctor for a husband for all of my health problems is a blessing I would never have thought to list when as a Young Women I was asked to make a list of qualities I wanted my future husband to have. (It ended up costing us only $54 for both drugs, thank goodness.)
Back to our story.
I had no idea what to expect except that I knew that a lot of the lighthouses were closed for the season. And several don't have actual addresses--it's just "north pier". But I kid you not, we pulled up to the first one (in St. Joseph) and all the "romance" that people had mentioned in reviews, was palpable. I don't know what it is, but there is something mystical, and lovely, and terrifying, and nostalgic about lighthouses, and I felt it immediately.
We drove up to the St. Joseph North Pier Outer and Inner lighthouses located at the North Pier in St. Joseph and there it was! Maybe it has something to do with it being the off-season, or maybe it's the fact that just before, there had been 24-foot waves pelting the lighthouse, but the pier was empty! ;-). This lighthouse happens to have very iconic photos of it published all over the internet:
I promise you, this is not a joke. Thankfully, the weather was still in the 40s when we arrived, so the lighthouse looked like this:
Phew! We dodged THAT bullet!
But really, with the sky slightly cloudy but the sun still rising, it was absolutely beautiful. However, see those waves pelting the breaker wall? Those were for real. The wave would be rolling in from the lake (it took me all morning to stop calling it an "ocean"), and when it hit the wall, it would just keep rolling over the wall. I might not have been so worried, except at the beginning of the pier (and most piers after this), there was a very distinct warning:
See those pictures? Those are pictures of people who actually DIED on the pier....or I guess, they were technically OFF the pier, drowning in the lake. And most of the time, there was a detailed account of how they died--saving someone else, slipping, getting pulled under by the rip tide.
So when I saw those waves rolling over the pier, in my risk-adverse way, I played it VERY safe.
Our next stop was only 30 minutes north along the coastline: South Haven lighthouse (again, west end of the south pier, South Haven--'cause that tells me SO MUCH).
South Haven still had the waves, but they have a first breaker wall probably 50 feet off to the side of the pier wall so the pier doesn't get hit quite so hard. However, it was still pretty scary. This pier though had a lot of stuff going on--a man was wakeboarding with a parasail in his hand (seriously, is there a term for that?)
and another guy was fishing on the pier and had just caught a cat fish (this too is a common activity). The fisherman warned us that the pier was slippery which is ALL I needed to hear to stay back.
Not even the wave that freaked my freak (but not before me thinking to stop the video because as we all know, with me, it's always about the picture....) stopped him....
But wow, talk about a touching moment. Back in the old BYU college days, when I was without a piano in my home (only time in my life), John and I decided to learn to sing "Brightly Beams Our Father's Mercy" a cappella after hearing Boyd K. Packer reference it at a BYU devotional. The words are beautiful, and they just so happened to be immortalized on one of the blocks holding the walkway:
Up to this point, we had had to walk out to lighthouses along piers, but Little Sable was a complete surprise. It was on the shore, built on sand. And it was completely deserted.
It was so peaceful there, and the sand was so white and warm, and we were rather tired from our early morning wake up call that we just laid down in the sand and took a nap in the Fall sunshine. We could hear the waves and there was a gentle breeze. It felt like a piece of Michigan heaven.
I couldn't resist taking a panoramic photo of our view.
Finally, the lighthouse I had been a bit worried about. The big sister to our Little Sable Lighthouse. The BIG Sable Lighthouse. I had read online that it's a two mile walk just to the lighthouse, and seeing that I was already at 9,500 steps on my FitBit, and knowing that we were a bit tired, I was a bit worried, but I shouldn't have been. We were both so excited to see it that we headed straight off (after driving just 30 minutes more).
Since there wasn't much to see or do around the lighthouse, John took it upon himself to pull a log out of the ocean (dang! I mean, LAKE) and try and stand it upright. I'm not sure why this was a goal, but it was a break for me to sit and rest my weary legs.
He started off still dressed, but got too hot working that way. So, the jacket came off, as did the t-shirt as well as the shoes and socks. Yep, he was down to his garments and his pants rolled up. I told him to just take off his pants as well (seeing as he was rocking some sexy skinny jeans), but he wasn't risking a stranger seeing him in his skivvies (not that he should worry with his weight loss---he kind of looks amazing).
Of course, we had the walk back, and leave it to John to take advantage of anyway to profess his love to me. He has done something similar pretty much anywhere we have ever gone (including underwater), and it's touching to know that I'm always at the forefront of his mind. So yes, on the way back, I spotted this, and I added my own little fun touch (notice the ring fingers?):
John said to me, "Let's celebrate our anniversary by going to California for a week and see Glo."
Hmm. Maybe it started a year ago (to the day almost) when he lost his job. Yes, he has a lot of free time at the moment, and can drop everything and go anywhere at any time...for a week at a time.
Okay, maybe it started before then.
Maybe it started 30 years ago when John married me.
Whatever the reason, I was NOT going to surprise Glo and drop in and see her (and seeing all the fires that are erupting all over CA at the moment, including near Santa Rosa today, I'm kind of glad we didn't make that plan). Plus, who did he think was going to plan that trip?
But John was determined that we celebrate. I didn't want to unless we did the big party with friends and the kids that I had wanted to have, but we don't have the money to do that, and a dark cloud of stress and bad emails and worrisome phone calls always hangs over us and inevitably that cloud releases torrents of rain whenever I'm trying to forget that it's there.
So I knew I had to do something. I needed to keep it close to home so that we didn't have to spend a lot of money, and so that I could process any bad news we received along the way, and I needed to keep it simple.
All anyone has to do is subscribe to one of the many Michigan social media/news sites to see all that Michigan has to offer any specific week or weekend, and for the past couple of years, I've really wanted to do either the waterfalls in the UP, or the lighthouses along the shore.
Considering snow is a possibility in the UP now, and it's major driving to get there, I kicked it into gear to plan a trip to see the lighthouses (although not without threatening John that I needed to cancel the trip because he wouldn't give me three hours of uninterrupted time to plan the trip. Yeah, he turned on Netflix...but kept me within his sight...)
It wasn't hard. Michigan has over 1,000 lighthouses (yes, that comma is in the right place). All I had to do was search "the top ten lighthouses in Michigan" and I had a start. As Rebecca said afterwards, it was one of those itineraries--things planned down to the half hour so that all runs smoothly and we can see everything we want to see. Our family likes that kind of trip, although I know other people do not.
And I kid you not, it was awesome. In fact, halfway through the trip, I told John that it would be one of those trips that we would always remember.
The itinerary started with us leaving at 7 a.m. on Thursday morning. That doesn't mean start to take things out of the car then--it means the key is in the ignition, and the door had better be locked, because there's no going back!
There was one small hiccup though. For the past two weeks, I had been in denial that I was getting a sinus infection, hoping once again that it would just go away (seriously, when will I learn that this is NEVER the case). When I woke up, I was in full-blown sinus infection mode...and we currently have no health insurance. So while I drove out to St. Joseph, John got on the phone with the pharmacist at CVS in that tiny town and priced out steroids and an antibiotic for me. I never fail to acknowledge that having a doctor for a husband for all of my health problems is a blessing I would never have thought to list when as a Young Women I was asked to make a list of qualities I wanted my future husband to have. (It ended up costing us only $54 for both drugs, thank goodness.)
Back to our story.
I had no idea what to expect except that I knew that a lot of the lighthouses were closed for the season. And several don't have actual addresses--it's just "north pier". But I kid you not, we pulled up to the first one (in St. Joseph) and all the "romance" that people had mentioned in reviews, was palpable. I don't know what it is, but there is something mystical, and lovely, and terrifying, and nostalgic about lighthouses, and I felt it immediately.
We drove up to the St. Joseph North Pier Outer and Inner lighthouses located at the North Pier in St. Joseph and there it was! Maybe it has something to do with it being the off-season, or maybe it's the fact that just before, there had been 24-foot waves pelting the lighthouse, but the pier was empty! ;-). This lighthouse happens to have very iconic photos of it published all over the internet:
I promise you, this is not a joke. Thankfully, the weather was still in the 40s when we arrived, so the lighthouse looked like this:
 |
But really, with the sky slightly cloudy but the sun still rising, it was absolutely beautiful. However, see those waves pelting the breaker wall? Those were for real. The wave would be rolling in from the lake (it took me all morning to stop calling it an "ocean"), and when it hit the wall, it would just keep rolling over the wall. I might not have been so worried, except at the beginning of the pier (and most piers after this), there was a very distinct warning:
See those pictures? Those are pictures of people who actually DIED on the pier....or I guess, they were technically OFF the pier, drowning in the lake. And most of the time, there was a detailed account of how they died--saving someone else, slipping, getting pulled under by the rip tide.
So when I saw those waves rolling over the pier, in my risk-adverse way, I played it VERY safe.
I felt much better when we were on the shore. And unbeknownst to me, the western short of Lake Michigan has the most beautiful, soft, white sand. I mean, this is the stuff they TRUCK into Grand Cayman and the Caribbean, and there it is, all natural #pureMichigan
It was such a cool experience being there that I could've honestly just called it a day then, but the itinerary called!
Our next stop was only 30 minutes north along the coastline: South Haven lighthouse (again, west end of the south pier, South Haven--'cause that tells me SO MUCH).
South Haven still had the waves, but they have a first breaker wall probably 50 feet off to the side of the pier wall so the pier doesn't get hit quite so hard. However, it was still pretty scary. This pier though had a lot of stuff going on--a man was wakeboarding with a parasail in his hand (seriously, is there a term for that?)
and another guy was fishing on the pier and had just caught a cat fish (this too is a common activity). The fisherman warned us that the pier was slippery which is ALL I needed to hear to stay back.
My honey, however, has no problem throwing caution to the wind and ventured out further. I was reviewing in my mind how much insurance money we have on him....
It was a gorgeous lighthouse to be sure.
I had allotted 45 minutes at each "light" (yes, that's what the hip kids call them), and sometimes we used it all, and sometimes not. The delightful thing was that we usually had a few minutes in town to find a shop that would sell me a postcard and magnet. Actually, several postcards which I would then write, address and stamp while driving to the next lighthouse. I'm not so sure the kids will be able to read exactly what I wrote, but it's the though that counts, right?
It was an hour drive to our next destination, the Grand Haven Light which sits in Grand Haven state park. *cue eye roll*. I guess there's the lighthouse, and then there's a house for the lighthouse steward?
It did make it kind of nice though, because I could actually wander past the lighthouse to take the picture of the light with the shore in the background (versus the ocean, I mean, LAKE).
Again, there were the death pictures at the beginning (or is it the end?) of the pier. But nothing will stop John!
Not even the wave that freaked my freak (but not before me thinking to stop the video because as we all know, with me, it's always about the picture....) stopped him....
But wow, talk about a touching moment. Back in the old BYU college days, when I was without a piano in my home (only time in my life), John and I decided to learn to sing "Brightly Beams Our Father's Mercy" a cappella after hearing Boyd K. Packer reference it at a BYU devotional. The words are beautiful, and they just so happened to be immortalized on one of the blocks holding the walkway:
I knew the schedule was tight for the day, so I had packed everything we needed to eat for the day so that we wouldn't need to stop at Burger King (and honestly, it left more time to run into some pretty quaint stores).
So just 45 minutes further north was Little Sable Point Lighthouse, and this one had an address! Unfortunately, the address was wrong, putting us in the town of Mears where we obviously wouldn't find a lighthouse. However, we were learning by this point to just head to the shore (usually where the lake met up with a river that led into the city).
On the way though, there were so many apple orchards, and many of the trees still had loads of fruit on them. John couldn't stand it any longer, and we pulled over, he got out, and took one off the ground. Unfortunately it was a Red Delicious which in our family is not "delicious", but he said with it being so fresh, it actually DID taste good.
Up to this point, we had had to walk out to lighthouses along piers, but Little Sable was a complete surprise. It was on the shore, built on sand. And it was completely deserted.
 |
| Our view as we approached it. |
It was so peaceful there, and the sand was so white and warm, and we were rather tired from our early morning wake up call that we just laid down in the sand and took a nap in the Fall sunshine. We could hear the waves and there was a gentle breeze. It felt like a piece of Michigan heaven.
I couldn't resist taking a panoramic photo of our view.
Finally, the lighthouse I had been a bit worried about. The big sister to our Little Sable Lighthouse. The BIG Sable Lighthouse. I had read online that it's a two mile walk just to the lighthouse, and seeing that I was already at 9,500 steps on my FitBit, and knowing that we were a bit tired, I was a bit worried, but I shouldn't have been. We were both so excited to see it that we headed straight off (after driving just 30 minutes more).
I must admit that the lighthouse itself was rather unimpressive (and I'm not sure why it's anybody's favorite). But the walk there was really delightful, and it reminded me so much of our geology/ecology lesson at Sleeping Bear Dunes: going from forest to sand within a half hour walk. Kind of interesting. And of course THAT made me think of my Interlochen baby who wasn't here on the adventure with me :-( John was happy to run ahead to get in his miles (because, you know, the five we had already done, and the four to and from the lighthouse weren't enough, but I'm not looking the "I can have some alone time" gift horse in the mouth....)
Since there wasn't much to see or do around the lighthouse, John took it upon himself to pull a log out of the ocean (dang! I mean, LAKE) and try and stand it upright. I'm not sure why this was a goal, but it was a break for me to sit and rest my weary legs.
He started off still dressed, but got too hot working that way. So, the jacket came off, as did the t-shirt as well as the shoes and socks. Yep, he was down to his garments and his pants rolled up. I told him to just take off his pants as well (seeing as he was rocking some sexy skinny jeans), but he wasn't risking a stranger seeing him in his skivvies (not that he should worry with his weight loss---he kind of looks amazing).
 |
This past year has probably been the hardest of our marriage, but golly, we just keep going. And we made it back to the car pretty dang tired.
We were only 20 minutes away from our hotel in Ludington, and I had one thing on my mind: Applebee's.
Yep, Applebee's.
The night before, we had been watching Survivor, and the reward was food from Applebee's. We used to eat at Applebee's frequently in State College, but there isn't one nearby around here, so it just sounded so good. The only probably was that Ludington is about the size of a dime, so as we were driving in, there seemed little to no chance of finding one. However, we drove up to the hotel and were about to turn in, but I kept driving just a little bit further, and wouldn't you know it but there, the only SIT DOWN restaurant in the town, was Applebee's! It was a 30-year-marriage MIRACLE!
John took a quick shower before, but I just wanted to eat. And boy did we ever, even getting dessert! For all the crap we've been through and are still enduring, just having a day to leave the cares of the world behind was a tender mercy. And as I posted on Facebook, this trip was a great reminder that whatever the storm, there's always a light guiding you home.
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