I’m back from our little adventure in the north woods! It was amazing.
Briefly, we left home Thursday morning (along with my parents) and drove up to Porcupine Mountain Wilderness State Park in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. We spent 3 nights up there and got home just before bedtime last night (Sunday). As I mentioned in my post on Thursday morning, I also took a full social media break from Thursday morning to Sunday evening!
I wish I could say I had some profound, reflective blog post prepared here following my “break” from reality, but I do not. I didn’t actually think about or do anything related to my blog or any of my other usual activities while I was gone. I had large chunks of time to just sit and reflect if I wanted to, out in nature or looking out at Lake Superior, but I felt surprisingly content to not really think about or do anything of real significance. 😊
I’m hoping to write maybe more of a real “trip report” for tomorrow’s Travel Tuesday post and will share some more details of what exactly we did and everything.
For now, some random thoughts, in no particular order, that I took away from this weekend:
- I love my family so much and they are awesome
- Any time spent near water feels restorative and refreshing- in this case, Lake Superior and various rivers and waterfalls
- Good weather is such a blessing when on an outdoor vacation. Our weather was AMAZING.
- I can sit and do nothing for quite a long time and feel content.
- It is incredible how many trees there are in the forests of the Upper Peninsula. It is awe-inspiring to think about the fact that every single one of those trees started as a little seedling.
- I normally love early mornings, but I also equally love staying up late on vacation. This weekend the sun didn’t even set up there until close to 10 pm and it stayed light for a long time after. We had a bonfire every night on the shore of Lake Superior, followed by a soak in the hotel’s awesome hot tub until midnight with good conversation. I loved everything about that whole routine.
- Watching my kids explore and experience new things and places is priceless. I especially loved watching them play in the lake and will always remember them trying to make “boats” out of huge pieces of driftwood. 🙂
- I really enjoy taking photos on vacation and capturing special moments that I’d probably forget otherwise. I got some really amazing photos this time.
- I’m so grateful for being able to travel frequently with my parents. We are very “compatible” travelers, in that we enjoy most of the same things and have similar travel styles. I know this wouldn’t work for all families, but it does for us and our vacations together are some of my BEST memories of all times.
- Skipping rocks is great fun and can entertain young and old alike for a very long time.
- My husband is very talented at opening beer bottles using other objects, like another bottle (NOT a bottle opener, which we forgot to pack 😉 )
- The new book I’m reading, The Bear and the Nightingale(the “out of my normal genre” Russian folklore I mentioned the other day) is one of the best, most captivating books I’ve read in a long time!
- Having no phone service is pretty awesome. Social media was deleted from my phone anyway, but something about not even having service up there felt so freeing to me.
- Watching the sun set into a body of water will never, ever get old to me
- Neither will listening to the sound of a babbling brook or waves
- Hot dogs always taste better when cooked on a stick over a fire
- I was very glad that we did not encounter any bears while out hiking
And now, enjoy a splattering of some of my favorite scenic photos that I took on the trip. I’ll share some more of the kids/ my family later this week.
Daily Gratitude:
I am most grateful that we had some really incredible weather on our trip. We couldn’t have asked for better weather, really. It was warm, sunny and just beautiful every day. There were some storms at night, but clear and perfect days. I am SO GRATEFUL for this.
GRATEFUL KAE 
This is my kind of vacation! It is great to unplug and just 'be'! Especially now when we are inundated with news and fear-mongering headlines! I am planning to try to unplug during our lake trip in August, but won't be able to fully unplug since I will need to monitor my email and log in if my coworker gets overwhelmed. But I think I will take social media off my phone, too. I'm glad you guys had great weather! We also love traveling with my parents. They came with us on our FL trips the last 2 years and we have so much fun. They are so into Paul so help as much as he will let them. And we love playing cards so after Paul goes to bed, we would play cards and just have so much fun together. We are definitely very lucky to enjoy being around our parents and to have similar travel personalities!
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Can’t wait for the details of your trip….I’ve been meaning to visit the Porkies for at least 15 years (not even joking) so any recommendations on places to stay and trails to hike would be awesome.
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sounds like a perfect gateway! I especially can feel how freeing it is not to have phone service 🙂
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Let me know if you have any questions, Sarah! I'm not an expert exactly but have been there a bunch and my family could definitely answer any questions too. Such an amazing place! Definitely GO! 🙂 The hike by the river in my trip report is a great one for sure. I could give you other names. I have a pamphlet too with all the trails marked if you want it for planning purposes! Places to stay would depend if you wanted to camp (there are a couple good campgrounds), more rustic/ backpacking type camping, staying in the interior rustic cabins (need to reserve far in advance!) or just the hotel (the Americinn is the only one and it's perfect!).
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