Now, if you recall, I mentioned that it rained some on Friday. Guess what? It rained a heck of a lot more Friday night. In fact, it poured. Now, like good campers, we had put everything that we didn't want getting wet into the van. What we didn't notice was that Roger had left his shoes outside their tent. What I also didn't realize was that Justin had left his outside of our tent. Granted, when we went to bed, the rain wasn't coming under the rain flap....
Sadly, by morning, that had all changed. The wind had shifted direction overnight and had soaked both of their shoes right through. While I was off taking a shower, Justin spoke with one of the camp caretakers and found out that Walmart was...wait for it....45 minutes away! Have you ever lived 45 minutes away from a Walmart? I live in the boonies and even I'm not that far from a Walmart. Well, if you've ever worn wet sneakers, you know just how miserable that is, so we loaded everyone up and we headed into Cheboygan.
Once there, we found the Walmart, bought new shoes for Justin, new socks for Roger (his shoes had dried out mostly by that point), a few odds and ends and then we headed across the street to Big Boy for some breakfast. Now, you might not find this funny, but I do. Justin is obsessed with not eating at chain restaurants. As in, we never eat at them. Unless..it's Big Boy. Seriously. I don't know what makes them the exception but they are. Of course, it's also taken me something like 5 years to convince him that it's just Big Boy, not Bob's Big Boy.
Ok, back to the story..did I leave the story? I dunno but either way, we're going back.forward..something. While eating our fairly delicious breakfast buffet at Big Boy, we decided to head all the way to Mackinac since it was only about 20 minutes away and Justin had never seen the bridge, let alone had the joy of driving across it.
After crossing, we drove up to Castle Rock. I hadn't been there in years and it hasn't changed at all! You still follow the giant footsteps through the shop and up the trail. It has been raining and none of us really wanted to hike all the way up so we explored the gift shop and then headed back down across the bridge. For those of you who haven't seen Castle Rock, I snapped a few pictures to show you.
I really wanted to buy the block in the first picture but Justin said no. It seems that I'm not allowed to cheat at my workouts. After a quick stop to admire the view of the bridge, we were back in the van and headed back to camp. Sadly, due to the time, we didn't get to stop by the apple orchard or the lighthouse. It was still a really great day though and it just made me all the more thankful for my family.
On the way back to camp, we had fun talking and daydreaming about us owning our own beach front house. We saw so many that were for sale. We even went so far as to talk about Justin opening up his search area to include up North. I wouldn't complain. I've always loved it up there. I'm not sure how we would possibly work it out with the boys' dad, but never say never, right?
Once we got back to camp, we realized that we needed to pick up some more wood. Unfortunately, there wasn't anyone at the office. That didn't stop Justin, though! He walked right over to the wood shed and snagged us a bundle of wood. I was a bit shocked until he assured me that he had left the money in there. Whew!
I don't know if I've mentioned it, but the boys had to earn their spending money for their trip. In the end, they both had $27 to spend. At the end of the day, they both had some money left, so after we parked, the family took a walk down to the Friends of the Park tent where Roger bought himself a t-shirt. It has the camp name and a fire embroidered on it. He wanted that one because it reminds him of us setting up and starting the fires together. I love that he wanted something that was special to something we had done together.
After struggling to get another fire started, we had a lovely dinner together. I was so proud of the boys. At the start of the trip, they were refusing to do anything with the fire. By the end of the trip, I didn't need to help them at all. They knew how to be safe around the fire. They knew how to cook their own hotdogs, marshmallows and even pizza. They grew up a little right in front of me.
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1 comment:
Castle Rock looks absolutely cool!
Weird about the bridge and the water too! Keep the stories coming!
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