A Trip Up North

This weekend we traveled up to Manistee and Muskegon with Kelsey's Mom and Brother. I know, it seems strange that we went somewhere with my husband's ex-wife, but we all get along and we feel that it's good for the kids if we do things together once in a while. We drove separately and stayed in different places, so it's not like we were acting like one big family the whole weekend.

Jim and I drove up by ourselves and Kelsey rode with her mom. They left before us since I had to work. We decided that we were going to take our bikes with us because all of the literature we read on the area mentioned the bike trails. So, we packed our suitcases in the trunk and then loaded the bikes up on the bike rack:




That picture is before we came back home, but on the way up there the concept was the same, only the bikes both faced the same direction. We tied the front tires to keep them from bouncing against the car and damaging the paint. It's a good thing we did, too. About an hour from home, I was sleeping and Jim woke me up saying, "Oh no! We just lost a bike!"

I bolted up and looked behind us, expecting to see a HUGE accident from people hitting or trying not to hit it. But traffic was fine. Then Jim told me that it was being drug behind the car. We pulled over and I jumped out to get the bike out of the road. Jim couldn't open his door because there was too much traffic. When I got to the back of the car, the bike was still in the road, but no one had hit it! I drug it out of the road by the rope that was barely holding it to the other bike. Amazingly, the bike is still usable! The right brake handle was shaved to a point, a chunk was shaved off the seat and the reflector on the front handle bars was mangled, but that was it! God was watching over us and all the people on the expressway!!


Here is a picture of some of the damage:



The rest of the trip was pleasantly uneventful! Our hotel room was amazing! The walls and ceilings were knotty pine, the furniture was all natural looking wood. Every room had an animal theme and ours was the "Deer Blind".





Everything was so beautiful up there!! Saturday we drove to Muskegon and spent the day at Michigan's Adventure. What a blast! The park is owned by the same company the owns Cedar Point, but this is smaller, less crowded, has shorter lines and allows you access to the water park and theme park with just ONE ticket. Kelsey even got to meet Charlie Brown!







Sunday morning Jim and I went for a bike ride. It wasn't as nice as we'd anticipated - I was expecting paved bike trails like what we have around home. But no, these bike trails were natural, and northern Michigan is hilly and sandy - do you have any idea how difficult it is to maintain control on a bike in sand when going down hill??? I was so scared that I was going to crash!!

On the way home, we saw a race car at the gas station - Kelsey was really excited about it, so we stopped and took a picture of her and Jim next to it.



All in all, it was a very enjoyable trip!