A cold wet day.........rain does not stop play...............

We had planned another day out with Danielle while she was home. Her husband was remodeling their home and sent her off to spend some family time. So we planned a day at the beach and a picnic. Gabby and Cooper were to come too so they could also have more time with Danielle. So Monday dawned all wet and cold. We decided to go anyway. In England we would carry on regardless of rain or anything else. So we packed up a picnic and off we went first to our secret beach.
It was misty and windy by the time we got there but the rain had passed.

See the mists in the trees

So the kids put on their life jackets and off we went to the beach and searching for Petoskey Stones, I was hoping to find some nice ones after the storm. I even found a rare piece of beach glass.



The kids did not notice the cold. The adults sort of did.


Reminds me of days at the seaside in England, if we had planned a day out by golly feet went in the ocean even if it was with coats hats and scarves.

When Cooper got cold we decided it was time for our picnic. So we went up the road a little to the school house.


Danielle enjoyed her sandwich. We took all the fixins and desserts.

The kids played


Laura needed to pee so she tried the old outhouse as it was unlocked haha

We then decided to go up the drive up dunes. There we did a little walking and watched for deer. Look at this lovie

We had not been on the Cottonwood trail before so went to check it out. It was too windy so only went a little way, enough to know we want to go back next time. This trail goes into the dunes and I thought it would be all sandy and hard going. It wasn't so we will certainly go back on a nice day.

Gabby chasing down Cooper hehe

The dunes full of Ladys breath

Another walk took us to this view



The kids played with Danielle,


I dont know how they still had so much energy.



Cooper seems to love it with his cousins. Special times that they wont appreciate until they are grown. Cooper slept for a few moments until we stopped.

It was afternoon and time to head home. We stopped for ice cream







Before we drove up the dunes we stopped at the Oleson farm at Oneida. This is one taken over by the park and it was open. So we went inside. How beautiful it was. Those farms at Point Oneida are just so beautiful. It had to have been hard to give them up. The olesons built stores in Traverse city in later generations and have been true benefactors to our heritage here.


Across the road, that I am sure was not there when these farms were founded

There were people working on some of the farms along the road at Oneida. They have crews stay in some of the farm houses so they can work during the day time. The redo and restore things to how it was back in the beginning as much as possible. This August we really must get out there for heritage days
This is inside the Oleson farm


We were lucky to hear some Sand Hill cranes. We had just been in the meadow when we saw them



We saw one more deer. can you see her?

So that was the end of a lovely day and I think we were all happy we did not let rain stop play.

Hickory Meadows....................

I have been meaning to check out Hickory Meadows for awhile now. Its a great place to hike we found. One must try to stay on track though. We got a little off track on the way back. We didn't get "lost" that would be difficult to do. I mean we knew where we needed to go, we just lost the trail. It was sort of fun cutting through the woods. Sort of exhausting. Danielle was a little worried I think.
Today it was Laura, Danielle Reina and me............Tristen was off in day camp. I had a doctors appointment this morning so we needed something close to home. It seemed like a good time to give Hickory meadows a whirl.

Off we go......lovely meadows of wildflowers and long grass. Go frolick I said.

Well, how does one frolick we wondered so I joined them.



Hickory Hills was once a ski resort. Now its given over to hiking, biking, skiing and so on. Public use. It was a lovely walk through woodlands and meadows. Birds singing, butterfly and a few other critters we found.


We went as far as we could go and then came back through more meadows. We found a pond. There were loads of dragonfly and even some fish. We spent a bit of time there. It was getting hot though.
Danielle says they are Sunfish. They have a blue irridescent tail. The dragon fly had blue spots and the ones I got pictures on had brown patches that made them look like tiny airplanes.



I got a picture of Laura taking pictures of the fish.......I thought I should keep the camera on just in case. I mean she did face plant on the last trip hehe.

Some lovely long grass, fun to walk through. Laura disappeared.

On the way back we had to cross the very small stream, but apparently its not always so small. Someone built a nice bridge.

It was very tricky for me, remember my vision problems.

Some views from the woods were very pretty looking out on the meadow. I was hoping for deer but there were others around somewhere we could hear them in the distance. I bet in the mornings you would see wildlife.

Someone had built a Tepee out of branches. Seems to be a popular thing to do.

The girls were picking rasberries


The strawberries were all gone, over and done with. There were some lovely wildflowers though



At some point I will be teaching the kids the names of the flowers.





Well that was an adventure. Who would think that when you went from one trail to the other in a straight line it would not work out. The original trail must have started at an angle because we sort of lost it when we cut through the woods and it did take awhile to get back on track. We met a young man and I asked him if we were going the right way but he had no idea. Anyway we had fun but were very tired when we got back to the car. Should have taken out water (we kept it in the car) but I hate to carry stuff. I already have the camera. We encouraged Reina by saying we would go get ice cream............and we did.