A Perfect Break

My vacation to Elk Rapids, Mich., is several weeks over but I couldn't dig up the enthusiasm to blog about it. It was a wonderful break, almost perfect. If G had come too it would have been perfect. But he has only 3 days of vacation left for the year, where I have something like 3 weeks left. I've been at my company 8 years compared to his not quite 2. But next year he'll get 3 weeks so we'll be a bit more even.
But I wasn't alone ... I was with my extended family.

Anyway ... the area in Michigan where I was (the northern part of southern Mich.)
is so beautiful. Elk Rapids is on Grand Traverse Bay, which is a huge bay off of Lake Michigan.

The weather was perfect. It was exactly the weather I imagine when I think about vacation: sunny, mid-80s with a breeze. Sigh. We stayed in glorious (and huge) old
Victorian with a wrap-around porch where I knitted every day. I am kicking myself now that I didn't take any pictures of it!

We spent our days at the beach, lounging on the porch and golfing for some
(not me!). Every evening, different people were in charge of making
dinner for the 18-20 people in attendance. We had couscous, grilled
fish, an Indian dish, spaghetti, my amazing chicken with my brother's
amazing creamed corn (fresh from the cob of course), great salads,
roadside shack pies and local cherries (oh my god so good!).

One day some of us drove to the Sleeping Bear Dunes on Lake Michigan. Since
we've vacationed in the area for about 20 years, we have a secret spot
that involves a long walk down the beach but you're rewarded by a
mostly private stretch of sand.

That was the only time I really look any pictures. Well, I took tons of my nephews and niece too but I won't post those here.



The top left photo was taken from the car while we drove over the Mackinac
Bridge that connects Michigan to the UP. That black bar is part of the
bridge. In the photo below that you can see the different blues in the
water. My brothers spent much the day talking about and attempting to
swim out to the edge of what the called the abyss. Dorks.

I love this beach. It really is one of my most favorite spots.

I did a ton of knitting on vacation. The day we went to the dunes, I made this Dashing mitt:



I also finally finished my first Monkey sock. But then I couldn't bring myself to cast on for the second while on vacation. I don't know why. I love the sock. I love the pattern. I guess I just wanted to do something else and since it was vacation, I did whatever I wanted.



And there was even a tiny yarn and quilt store in town. It didn't have a good selection at all, but I did find some sugar n cream cotton to make dishclothes. I promptly knit up two as a thank you to my parents for a lovely vacation.



And I finished my mom's shawl, but not in time to give it to her. I didn't have a good spot for blocking it so I brought it back home with me and it is now blocked and ready to give when I am home again in Sept.