Michigan Adventure Day 2: Kitch-iti-kipi

Day 2 of our Michigan Adventure included a drive across the eastern half of the Upper Peninsula starting at my parents' home and ending at Tahquamenon Falls State Park with stops in Escanaba to tour the new Meijer and enjoy a picnic lunch at Ludington Park and in Palms Book State Park to tour  Kitch-iti-kipi (or The Big Spring) with the boys...

As I mentioned in my last post, my parents were not home while we were there, so we enjoyed a very quiet morning of talking to the cows, droning the fields of West Nadeau, eating breakfast in the driveway and off-roading with the Gator.  It was a beautiful summer morning and quickly reminded me how much I love it there in the summer!

Apples on the new porch.

Avery showing me the cows across the street.

This may be my favorite picture from our entire vacation!  <3...if not one of my all-time favs!

It always feels good to be HOME.

Drone Photos...

The Cows

Asher caught a dragonfly.

My dad likes to wear large, baggy, comfy PJ pants around the house (who doesn't).  Since he is not real tall though he tends to pull them up high so they don't drag on the ground.  My nephews started wearing their PJ pants up high too and called it "Papa Pants".  Now all of the boys think it is hilarious.  When I saw Dad's favorite cookie monster pants laying around at the house, I couldn't resist this picture.  ;)

Family Gator Ride!

In the late morning, we left my parents and headed North to Escanaba.  The boys each got a travel "present" along the way as I'd wrapped several snacks and dollar store items to keep them busy and behaved in the car.  The day before they had gotten some Paw-Patrol notebooks to draw in.  This morning they each got a new box of crayons to go with.

After purchasing the essentials from Meijer, we picked up some lunch from Subway and then headed to Ludington Park for a picnic lunch and some fun on the playground.

We played let the boys burn some energy at the playground and then continued on our way to the Eastern end of the U.P.  Before leaving Escanaba though we made one more stop, vital to any U.P. vacation: Sayklly's Confectionary for Yooper Bars!  I picked up one for each boy as their next good-behavior prize and a dark chocolate one for myself.

I really wanted to buy this shirt, but I restrained myself.

So.....Gooooood!

As we were about to leave Escanaba, we were sitting at an intersection waiting for the light to turn when Asher said, "Look, there's Buzzbee!".  Eric and I had no idea what he was talking about, but he was very excited about it and continued to try and get us to see what he was seeing.  Eventually, we realized that he was pointing at a yellow Camaro with a black racing stripe across from us which looked exactly like Bumblebee the Transformer.  He was so excited about it that Eric and I totally started to play along with him that maybe it is Bumblebee and then when the car drove past we saw that it actually did have the Transformers Logo on it.  With that, we had to try to catch up with him to get a better look.  We excitedly discussed what type of mission Bumblebee might be on in the U.P. and the possibility that maybe my van is actually a Transformer in disguise as well...afterall it WAS fast enough to catch up with Bumblebee! ;)

See the logo on the side?

We are beating Bumblebee!

After the excitement of seeing a real Transformer wore off, we continued our way to our next destination: Kitch-iti-kipi.  Along the way we tried to convince the boys that they should take a little rest.  Asher listed and closed his eyes for a little while, but Avery refused.  Instead he was acting really obnoxious and sassy.  We warned him that he wouldn't get the special prize that Mommy bought at our next stop, but that did not keep him from acting out.  Thus, when we finally arrived at the Big Spring, Asher (who had done all we asked of him and behaved) got a Yooper bar, while Avery did not.  I felt terrible as he began to sob and exclaim, "I sorry Mommy, I sorry" over and over again, but rules are rules.  Asher and I stayed behind while he ate his treat so that Avery wouldn't be more sad and then we did our best to distract him with other things.

Afterwards made our way up to the park gift shop where we found a penny stamper.  The boys were both very interested in this and it just so happened that Eric had some change in his pocket so they each got to squish a penny with a picture of their choice.

After each boy squished a penny, we walked down to the Big Spring for a ride on the raft to enjoy the view deep below. 

After we had seen everything there was to see at Kitch-iti-kipi, we made our way back to the van and then continued on with the last leg of our drive to Tahquamenon Falls State Park, where we would camp for the evening (our first experience tent camping as a family).  About 20 minutes before we arrived at the park, it began to rain and continued the entire time we set up our tent.  For dinner that evening we had planned to cook pizza pudgie pies over the campfire, but due to the rain we changed our plans and went out for dinner instead.

My escape in the dry van while the boys set up the tent in the rain! ;P

For dinner, we found a place called The Inn Gastropub & Smokehouse in the nearby town of Paradise.  To me, the word "gastropub" is probably one of the least appetizing words I can think of to title a restaurant, but with few options we gave it a chance.  I was originally going to order a Rueben sandwich but when the waitress came to our table she asked if anyone had told us all of the things they were out of.  When I heard corned beef was on the list, I changed my order to the BLT club and it was awesome!  It had several full strips of thick, crispy bacon, a bunch of shaved turkey, an artisan bun, lettuce, tomato and a garlic & rosemary aioli.  Soooooo yummy!  Eric had a burger and agreed that it, along with the homemade fries (which I also ate) were great as well...our only complaint (which all 4 of us agreed to) was that their ketchup (which I think must have been homemade as well) was gross...too sweet.

When dinner was over, we headed back to the campground where we gave the boys another prize: Their very own camping bathroom bags.  Before camping, Eric came home one day with two little camouflage colored canvas pencil bags and travel soaps, shower scrubs, toothbrushes and toothpaste to fill them so that each of the boys could have their own bag to take to the bathrooms while camping to get ready for bed and in the morning.   He said he had had one when he was a kid and always though it was really cool.  Personally, I thought it was a little bit of a waste of money since we already have everything they need, but I could tell it made Eric happy so I went along with it.  In the end, he was right.  Those little travel bags, along with the headlamps he had bought each of them earlier, where a big hit!  We took our bathroom supplies to the bathhouse and got ready for bed and then we all snuggled up in our sleeping bags in the tent for a much-needed good night of sleep to end Day 2.