Stuff from the weekend

We visited my parents over the weekend. Lotta fun. We went to the Point Betsie Lighthouse, which was open, so we toured it. Dad & I went up to the Very Top. Mom & Kev stayed down - they were Incompatible with the stairs. Not real user-friendly stairways. See?

Bottom Stairs:


Looking UP the stairs:



















Then there's the upper set of stairs. Looking up at 'em, and looking down at 'em respectively:

But the VIEW was incredible.
















From here, South & North Manitou Islands and Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore were visible. That doesn't happen every day, so we were very fortunate to see them.


We learned about the history of the lighthouse, its significance for Lake Michigan, and how important it still is for navigation.

Ships sailing the horseshoe of Lake Michigan - Lake Huron cut east at Point Betsie to go between the Michigan Mainland and the Manitou Islands, rather than cutting west of the Islands. It offers much better and safer navigation. the lighthouse and its grounds were sold to the historical Society that now operates it...all except for the actual light, which is still used as a navigation aid and is owned and maintained by the Coast Guard. It's all automatic now, of course. The original Fresnel Lens that was in the light house is still in existence, and has been restored. They're hoping to eventually house it back in the light house.

We took Kai to the beach on Sunday. He enjoyed playing with the waves, but he got ambushed by one that was a fast-moving roller and really splashed him hard when he was "biting" a smaller one that had just crashed in. He's not real big on swimming, so after about 1/2 hour of playing in the waves, he was done and wanted to go home.

We had a great time visiting my parents. I wish we lived closer so we could visit more often, but this is where God put us for now. Maybe later He'll have us move, but for now this is where we're supposed to be.