Michigan Trip: Part 6-Manistee

For the last part of our trip, we headed to Manistee, which is on the west side of the state right by Lake Michigan. As a child, we used to go here a lot during the summer. My grandpa's cousins had a big Victorian house that their families shared, so sometimes we would go to the house and stay over. 

When we arrived in Manistee, we headed to the old Victorian to see my Grandpa's cousin Jim (and his wife Jan). Also, their daughter Rhoda and grandson Zack were there. After visiting and catching up for a bit with each other, us girls decided to make jewelry and the guys went to look at ball cards. After, Rhoda, Joelle, and I went to downtown Manistee to look around the shops. The downtown (the whole town in fact) is so neat and it's really pretty. It's so sad though to see how the downturn in the economy has affected the town.

The ring I made...I love it!

Later we headed back to the house to have dinner...a traditional Michigan food, pasties (I know, I know, you just read it and you're thinking "what the heck is that?" but it's pronounced "pass-tees"). Pasties have rutabagas, potatoes, carrots, and beef in a delicious pie like crust that's in the shape of a half-moon. That were so tasty. We talked and had coffee, and then decided to head down to the beach for the sunset. It was cloudy and there wasn't much of a sunset, but the clouds sure looked pretty. This has been a tradition of ours whenever we're in Manistee, to go to the beach and see the sunset. 

The clouds were so cool. 

The next day, we shopped, and then packed up to head back to Grand Rapids for one more nights at my Aunt Michele's and Uncle Duane's. On Thursday morning, we left for SC, thus concluding our three week trip to Michigan. 

I'm so thankful for what a fun time we had and all the fun memories we've made. Thankful for the time with family and specifically with Grandpa, and thankful that Joelle and I have a grandpa who is willing to do such fun things with us. 

Manistee on Dwellable

Michigan Trip: Part 4-Mackinac City and Mackinac Island

We packed up our camper, and from Harrison, headed to Mackinac City! As a side-note, Mackinac is prononunced Mackinaw. The spellings used to be interchangable, but Joelle and I noticed that on the mainland, the name of the city is spelled with a "w" at the end, while on the island, it is spelled with a "c" at the end of the word.

We got to Mackinaw City just in time for dinner and went straight to Scalawags to get our fried white fish, hush-puppies, and fries. I'm not a huge fish eater, but occasionally I will eat a good mild fish, well let me tell you, this white fish at Scalawags was excellent. The Tigers game was on TV while we were eating, so we chatted and watched the game. After our delicious dinner we went shopping in all of the neat stores around town. And of course, we had to get our fudge! Mackinac-whether the island or the mainland city-is well-known for their fudge. I personally think that it's some of the best fudge around. We got: regular chocolate, German Chocolate, Choc. Pecan, Raspberry, and Claw (which had cashews and caramel). Yummy!We headed back to the campground and prepared to go to the island the next morning.

The next morning we woke up to go to breakfast at the Pancake Chef (I thought it was awesome that the restaurant has such a huge emphasis on pancakes, as I am obsessed with pancakes). I got pancakes with Michigan cherries and whipped topping. Delish. After, we headed to the ferry. In 18 minutes we docked on Mackinac Island and we were ready to start our adventure on the island.

For anybody that hasn't been before, it is a beautiful island with only bikes and horse carriages for transportation (and snow-mobiles for the residents in the winter). The island is located in Lake Huron. The houses are all beautiful and colorful! But there are flowers EVERYWHERE and it's just a gorgeous place to be. It's seriously one of my favorite places ever.

We shopped and bought jewelry and snacked (and praise the Lord! I finally had my Starbucks) and had a fantastic time. My favorite part was going to the museum. I love art, so to see art that was special to the island made me love it even more. And to celebrate the Grand Hotels 125th Anniversary, they had a special exhibit and included local artists artwork. It was all beautiful and Joelle and I wanted all of it! (I hope to post some more pictures on here once I've uploaded them onto my computer).

Some day, I hope you will go and visit beautiful Mackinaw City and Mackinac Island...I really think you'll enjoy it!

Here's the view (and Grandpa's head) while sitting in front of the art museum.

Mackinac Island on Dwellable

Michigan Trip: Part 3-Harrison

After leaving Grand Rapids, we headed to Harrison to visit my (Great) Aunt Karen, cousin Richie, and his wife Kat. Harrison is a really small town (with no Starbucks) in the middle of Michigan. My Aunt Karen lives with her four dogs in a really neat log cabin with a big porch on the front, and Richie and Kat live right next door.


While we were here, I enjoyed myself by sitting on the porch and enjoying the beautiful weather. I worked for several hours on different things for work and listened to lots and lots of music. (Lots of Jonny Lang and a new artist I found-Elizaveta). We also went to a local restaurant and before we left after dinner, Aunt Karen told us that there was a quarter game in the back. You know, those kinds where you insert a quarter and a tray pushes it into more quarters, and it's supposed to push some quarters down and you win those. Well, this is when I discovered that Joelle should never gamble. She would become addicted. We all laughed a good bit at how funny this was.


It was so much fun to be able to hang out with everybody and catch up and relax. Tons of good laughs were had.

These are two of Aunt Karen's dogs-Charlie and Allie

On our last day here, Aunt Michele came over from Grand Rapids and we packed up the camper in order to head to....

Michigan Trip: Part 2-Grand Rapids

On Saturday (the 21st), Grandpa, Joelle, and myself made the trip to Grand Rapids where my Aunt Michele (who also deserves a post of her own) and Uncle Duane live. Uncle Duane works late, so besides him, we all headed to get Chinese for dinner. Later, back at the house, us girls decided that it was necessary for us to paint our nails. Usually, this is something Joelle and I do at least twice a week, but we hadn't been able to paint our nails for a week! We picked our apple green, teal, and mint green polish and went to town.


Yesterday, we went to church and then came home to hang out for a bit. We talked for a while about random memories for a while, then grandpa and Aunt Michele decided they needed to go pick something up.   Aunt Michele once Starbucks was jokingly mentioned, I jumped on the chance to go out with them because I hadn't had Starbucks in over a week. (While working in my church offices where almost everybody enjoys their bold blend Starbucks coffee, I have become quite the little coffee lover).  After, we went shopping and bought even more Michigan shirts, because a girl really can't ever have enough Michigan clothing.


Afterwards, we came home and hung out in the backyard while we waited for our delicious rib dinner to be prepared, and we discussed our trip to the UP that's coming up. After dinner, Uncle Duane, Joelle, and I walked down to the 7/11 and got Coke slurpees...it's a tradition. All in all, it was a pretty uneventful day, but still a fun and relaxing day.

Stay tuned for more of my adventures in Michigan! Next it's off to Harrison, Mackinac, and Grand Marais.

Michigan Trip: Part 1-White Lake & Detroit

We left SC on Monday the 16th for our three week trip to Michigan (we being myself, my little sister Joelle, and my grandpa). We split the drive up to Michigan into two days; Monday night we camped between two corn fields in Piqua Ohio. (I will have you guys all know that I proudly wore my Michigan shirt in Ohio.) 


The next day, we arrived in Michigan around 1ish and headed over to my (Great) Aunt Nivra's house. We spent the night there, and then my sister and I headed over to my Aunt Anita's house-who, by the way, deserves her own post. We (my aunt, sister, cousin, and I) all just laughed and laughed and laughed...and cried from excessive laughter. Numerous movies were watched including the new Madea movie, and three of my favorites: 13 Going on 30, Remember the Titans, and our ultimate "laugh til you cry movie" Miss Congeniality 2 (seriously...that movie is hilarious).

Late Friday afternoon, after filling our tummies with deep dish pizza and malted ice cream, we headed to one of my newest and most favoritest places: Comerica Park. Home of the Detroit Tigers. We had all our Tigers clothing and accessories on and were ready to cheer on our Tigers. As a side note, Joelle was probably experiencing small heart attacks the entire night because "her Tiger" Justin Verlander was pitching. I was pretty excited also...one of the best pitchers in the whole major league system and we just happened to get tickets for the night he was pitching?! Perfect weather, a great outing by Justin, great hits and catches made by my Tigers, tons of laughs, postgame fireworks, AND a win do in fact a perfect night make. 

Beautiful Comerica Park before the game against the White Sox ensued. 

I will be back with my latest adventures from my Michigan trip soon!