Since my kids were born, I've dreamed about giving them a northern summer. Well this year, we did just that! I arranged for most of my camps to be in June so that we could take all of July and drive the midwest! I wasn't exactly sure how they would handle such a long road trip, but it was great! We left on July 3rd and headed to Nashville. We spent the night in rural Georgia on the way up, and made our way up to Nashville on the fourth. After a day walking the city, we saw Lady Antebellum play in the street, then watched the fireworks from our hotel room. It was perfect!
The next day, we headed to Iowa to go stay with Laurence and Patty for a few days! We spent the weekend running in the grass, skateboarding, going to Antique Archaeology, going to an indoor Nerf gun park, playing pool, playing the drums, going to the John Deere Pavilion, and mom's favorite ice cream shop for a lime soda! At the end of the weekend, dad flew back home, and the three of us drove to Michigan!
We stayed with Aunt Kim for the night while I taught a hip hop class at Beer City Barre, and then headed to Grand Haven to stay with Aunt Kelly and Didier for the week! We had a great time going to the beach, exploring Grand Haven and Holland, riding mopeds, swimming, guitar playing, and lots of family time! At the end of the week, we headed up to one of my very favorite places in the world, Mackinac Island. We spent a night in Petoskey, where we successfully hunted for stones, and then made our way up to the city. We spent the night there, after visiting the fort, and then headed over to the island on the ferry the next morning. You know when you reminisce on a place in your head for so long, and then you visit again several years later, and it just isn't quite as magical? Well this wasn't the case; Mackinac Island was just as beautiful and wonderful and spectacular as it was 20 years ago. We spent the next two days biking, exploring, shopping, mini-golfing, and loving life. Nick and the boys fell in love with the island just like I did so many years ago, and we all can't wait to go back!
After Mackinac, we headed back down to Grand Rapids for a few days to celebrate Nick's birthday! We met up with some old friends, Nick golfed, we did a round of breweries, and had a great time!
On our way home, we stopped for two days at Mammoth Caves, where we shared a cabin with two wild field mice, I had a minor panic attack when we got stuck in an extremely claustrophobic part of the cave, and saw huge families of deer! For our last night on the road, we stopped and rented a tiny house, whose property actually straddled the Alabama/Georgia border! I loved it; I could have definitely made it my permanent home!
It was a great summer, filled with fun, laughs, and memories. I can't wait to do it again. Smelly boys in a car and all!
