Day 2
We woke up Friday morning in Paw Paw MI after a good nights sleep. Excited to get the rest of our journey to Empire MI started we all elected to skip the free breakfast and head north in hopes of finding some neat place to eat along the way.
As we drove north towards Holland MI Cindy searched for restaurants on her phone. A local place called the Biscuit got 5 stars and sounded like some place we needed to give a try. After running it past the rest of the gang all GPS's were guiding us to the Biscuit. I have no idea how many navigational aides we had running between three cars but I don't think any of them picked the same route! I was in the lead so the others just followed me. Our route took us through a residential area making me wonder if we had the right address programmed in. Finally I could see a grouping of larger buildings and a round a bout ahead. If there is one thing I love to find while driving is a good round a bout! My record is 13 laps around a round about!!! I took the gang on a lap of the round a bout and they must have all thought I was lost as they followed me around! We soon found parking spots and headed into the Biscuit.
The Biscuit was a really neat place to eat. We described it as eclectic urban somewhat "upscale" local dining. While there were a few items on the menu I was not familiar with they had plenty of the "standard" breakfast items to meet my needs. I elected to go with the Farmer's special which had just about one of everything on the menu! Everything was delicious and I had to let Libby try my blueberry pancakes. It seems Libby is always trying whatever I order. It got started with her wanting to "learn" to like salmon. Since I usually get salmon or some sort of fish wherever we go she is always sampling my salmon!
Breakfast was filled with large amounts of laughter. So much so I was a bit fearful we might be disturbing the others dining there. It seems the "Gang" can't go anywhere or do anything without large amounts of laughter. We all get along great and we always seem to have a great time when we all get together. Amy had us all in tears when she broke out her legal pad full of trip notes! Seems she had been doing a lot researching for activities and neat places to see on our trip. She said she had already had to strike off several things as we have either passed them up or found other things along the way. I thought I was into doing research LOL.
After thoroughly stuffing ourselves at the Biscuit, that we all gave 5 stars, we got back on the road with Jerry leading us to Fox Barn winery. One thing we love to do is try out different wineries during our travels and it is not uncommon for a trip to take Cindy and I twice as long as it should if we find several wineries along the way! Arriving at Fox Barn winery we were met with great weather and beautiful scenery. The barn the winery is in is really cool and we even got to see another wooden barn being built on our drive in. We all looked around the gift shop and saw a lot of neat items we had not seen elsewhere. Cindy and I found a wine stopper with a sailboat on it that we had to have. Making our way to the tasting bar and introducing the girls behind the bar to our rowdy bunch we got down to business and started tasting their wines. We were impressed from the start with how good their wines were. We are all pretty much sweet wine drinkers. Some of can choke down a semi sweet when needed but we all lean towards the sweeter wines. They started us out with a semi sweet red that was really yummy and it just got sweeter and better the more we tried. We all had a favorite picked out by the time we got to the "specialty wines". One of the their signature wines is a asparagus wine. Yes, I said asparagus wine! Not being a real big asparagus eater to begin with I was a bit hesitant but we all paid our two bucks for a taste. Now when the lady at the tasting bar tells you not to smell something before you drink it that should tell you something. After a well timed joke by Bill that had us all laughing we made a toast, held our breath(myself not good enough), and took a taste. Well, all I can say is that it tasted pretty much like I thought it would and I did not care for it at all. Libby and I both described it as nasty and much worse that the "fuel oil" wine we had in Madison. I tried, unsuccessfully, to get one of my two dollars back that I gave them for the tasting as I only choked down about half of my sample!
Bill bought a bottle for us all to share on the patio so a toast to a great vacation was necessary
After our wine on the patio we headed north up through the country as we made our way back to highway 31. It was during this "off the planned route" excursion that we came along Silver Lake. As we came up over a hill heading north we could see the sand dunes in front of us and Siler lake at the end of the road. One of the really neat things about the dunes at Silver lake is that it is a state park that allows you to drive on the dunes. There are places that rent dune buggies, four wheelers, and other all terrain type of vehicles for you to drive the dunes with. Cindy and I marked that as a must do on a later trip!
We made our way back to 31 and continued on northward till we arrived at the Cottonwood Inn in Empire MI which is where we would all be staying for the next three days. We all found our rooms, dropped off our luggage, and changed into kayaking clothes as we were headed to kayak the Crystal river just up the road in Glenn Arbor. Again, MI and what they call a river cracks us up!
We found our way to Glenn Arbor and located Crystal River Kayak rentals. After the usually paperwork and trip briefing we loaded into a van to head to the put in location. While it was not as sunny or as warm as we would have liked it to been the weather was still very pleasant. Arriving at the put in spot we carried our kayaks to the water and loaded up what little gear we needed. Of course I had to take a few pics at the start.
Here we are waiting our turn to take off.
Here is Jerry and Amy in their Otter heading out.
and here comes Bill and Libby heading out into the mighty Crystal river. Ok, that was a stretch. The river, while clear(thanks to the sand bottom) and beautiful, is far from mighty, or deep. Most places were barely a foot deep with plenty of places so shallow we would drag floating over them. The river was not very wide either, maybe averaging 50-60 feet in most places. But it had a current to help keep us moving along which was nice. We had to pass under several fallen trees along the way which we used as practice for the tube shootin we would be doing a little late in the journey down the river.
Just one of the obstacles we had to maneuver around and under.
Here is the rest of the gang making their way under the trees. With all this hard paddling we were all soon in need of some liquid refreshments and Amy came through with a delicious bottle of cold blackberry wine that she got back when we all went xc skiing in Angola IN last January. I was just amazed she could keep a bottle of wine for that long. They never make it that long around our house!!!
Here we are all sharing a yummy treat on the water. Good thing too as the tube was just ahead and we would need all the liquid courage we could get to survive Shootin the Tube!!!
Cindy and I were in the lead when it came time to shoot the tube as I told the others I would video them coming out once we got through to the other side. My plan was to hold the video camera while Cindy guided us into the tube and film our journey through it. As you can see in the video all went as planned and Cindy did an awesome job directing us right into the tube which is not real easy trying to drive a tandem kayak from the front seat.
As you can see we all handle the tube with ease as it was not near as hard as they tried to make it out to be. Luckily the water was pretty low or Jerry might have a lost a hair or two as he passed through the tube!
We all had a good laugh just pass the tube as we came along a couple sitting in metal lawn chairs in the river sharing a glass of wine. We all said hello as we passed by them but one of us had to ask what kind of wine they were enjoying. The man very snootily responded back" Bordeaux" in the most pretentious of ways. We all had a good chuckles as we each did our best impersonations of him once we rounded the next bend in the river.
As we made our way back to the take out the current really started to die out on us so we actually had to paddle a little to keep going. With water so clear we could see all the bottom we kept looking for fish but with the exception of the occasional minnow we saw very few and none of any real size. We had one last portage to make across a road before the last short run to the livery. The slope on the side of the road where we put back in at was pretty steep so getting a great idea I had Cindy get in the kayak up front then I gave the kayak a healthy shove down the incline sending her sliding towards the water. About the time I gave it a big shove Cindy questioned my idea asking "Do you think this is a good ideaaaaaaa?!?!?" as she slid down the hill into the water. The nose dove down into the water as the wave came up over the bow. Cindy made it look easy but continued on down stream a bit without me. The water was not very deep there, maybe knee deep, but still plenty chilly thanks to the slow warm up this season. Luckily she loves me an back paddled back up to get me.
Our kayaking trip soon came to a end as we reached the livery on the edge of the "river". After returning our equipment and thanking the workers we headed back into Glenn Arbor to see what we could find for dinner. We all decided to give the Good Harbor Grill a go for dinner. After a brief wait we all went about making our dinner selections. I of course went for salmon, which Libby had to sample. They served the salads in a large bowl for the whole table and we all commented on how good the ranch dressing was. We thought it must have been homemade. The food was really pretty good and it appeared the restaurant did a good business as it was packed the whole time we were there.
After dinner we hurried back to the Cottonwood Inn to change into something a bit warmer before we headed off to Empire Bluffs to watch the sunset. It had been mostly cloudy the whole day but we were hopeful that the skies would clear and we would get to see the sunset. Unfortunately we were running a bit late and had to run through parts of the trail in order to get to the bluffs before dark but as it turned out it really did not matter as the skies never cleared so we got to watch the clouds go from grey to black instead. We still posed for seflie just for our own memories
Sure enough we walked down onto the beach and right to an already lit fire. We all pulled our folding camp chairs and proceeded to snack on smores and Jiffy Pop. Amy got a good laugh when she heard the Jiffy Pop starting to pop. Seems it had been some time since she had last seen it.
While we enjoyed our snacks and a bottle of wine from Fox Barn winery with the sounds of the waves from Lake Michigan washing on shore I talked with Bill about what time we wanted to get up to go fishing in the morning. Amy had a great laugh about our inflatable boat idea and fishing from it. Before long everyone had joined in and had a good belly laugh over it! Let's just say Bill and I would be the ones with the last laugh the next morning!
We ended the second day of our 2014 Michigan vacation curled up the way we end everyday, curled up in each other's arms. We relived the day and shared our hopes for a fun tomorrow before our eye lids slowly fell over eyes bringing a great day to very happy ending...
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