Written by Jeff
25 miles
First, the good news: the fever broke during the night, and I felt fine in the morning. A 12-hour flu… Wow, when does that happen?
Second, the bad news: we weren’t as smart as our neighbors, who woke up early, packed up, and escaped the rain that started around 8:00 AM. Sometimes it’s just hard to get out of bed, you know? Even when you’re sleeping on the ground. So, yeah, we got wet. The rain lasted until 10:00 AM, and it made breaking camp slow and painful. Angela took that opportunity to pity herself and stand in the rain, looking around, trying unsuccessfully to figure out how to dry out kitchen items with wet towels. Waterproof bins are less effective when they aren’t closed before it rains. There’s nothing like rain to dampen everyone’s mood and look for ways to blame one another for their miserableness. Probably not the best way to start a day that includes a 39 mile bike trip.
We did find reason to be grateful when we saw some of the other sites which had 4 or more inches of standing water in them. At least our site was on higher ground!
We finally managed to pull out of our site at 12:48 pm. We were able to take a bike path, Little Traverse Wheelway, for a good deal of the day. What a beautiful path! It winds along the lakeshore all the way through the town of Petoskey and continues on until Charlevoix. We stopped for lunch at a spot overlooking Lake Michigan and set out our wet things along the wooden fence. it looked like a yard sale–shirts, sleeping bags, towels, tarp… it was all hanging out to dry (sorry for the eyesore, Petoskey!) In their new obsession with finding Petoskey stones, poor Caleb sliced his toe on a rock while wading in the lake. At first sight, it looked a lot worse than it was because of all of the blood on his foot (Emergency room?!? Oh, no!) A little pressure and a couple of band-aids later, he was good to go.
By 7:00 we finally arrived at a grocery store in Charlevoix grabbed what we needed for dinner. We had hoped to make it another 19 miles to Eastport, Michigan, but we decided to cut our losses and camp at a campground just a few more miles away, at Fisherman’s Island State Park.
Fisherman’s Island was another instance of God’s provision for us. It’s a primitive campground (no electric or showers) on a lovely beach. As soon as camp was set up & dinner started, we all went to the beach to wash up and see the sunset. We were not disappointed.
The happy couple… You’d never know that 30 minutes later Angela would be crying because dinner was overcooked. 🙂 Just keeping it real…
Petoskey stones were found. Children were cleaned. All the misery of our day’s rough start was washed away in the pure waters of Lake Michigan. Of course, new challenges presented themselves, too: sand clung tenaciously to Caleb’s and David’s bodies, and we had no showers. Dinner (Tri-tip Teriyaki) was overcooked and the rice was burned. Nothing on our clothesline actually dried because the sun had gone down by the time we hung the clothes. And we feebly tried to clean up after dinner in the dark, with a hand pump…
At dinner, we discussed how we could work better together as a family to get packed up. Difficult days like this help motivate us toward more structure and engagement from everyone. We split up responsibilities and made teams for kitchen cleanup, packing the tent, etc., and generally resolved to get out earlier the next day. Sleep, as always, came easily for everyone, as we are generally exhausted each day.