Adventure Awaits

In the early 1940’s, my great-grandfather bought a piece of land on a beautiful lake in Northen Michigan. Logs were brought in and raised with the help of a team of horses, and giant stones were carried by boat to create a beautiful fireplace. It was the first cabin on that beach, a three bedroom, one bath cabin, with a window-filled porch, overlooking a vast, sandy beach.

This is where I spent my summers. Every summer. Every possible weekend, we’d load up the van and head “up north” to our favorite place to be.

This place is still our home away from home. My kids have grown up in that cabin and on that beach, too. We are blessed to have a little piece of heaven on earth where we can go to escape the summer heat and get in some much needed lake time.

And because it’s so easy to pop up to the cabin on a weekend, or every weekend, we’ve never felt the need to travel anywhere else with the kids. Jason and I have taken little trips here and there to different parts of the country, and I have wanted to explore many different places with my kids. It’s hard to imagine, but we only have three more summers before Owen is off to college, so time is of the essence. For years I have dreamed of this. For the past year I have planned this. Today, the dream becomes a reality. Today we embark on one epic journey.

We have studied our state capitals...

We have hunted and gathered and packed everything we could think of, and we are ready to go. In the next 16 days, we plan to visit 16 states. Aside from the days we will be spending with my aunt and uncle in Colorado, we have no reservations. We have a tentative schedule, but we plan to just see what each day holds and roll with it. Did I mention we are camping and that we have never even been camping as a family? Are we crazy? Maybe. All I can tell you is that this family is nothing but excited. Today we bid farewell to our farm filled with tiny chicks and surrounded by fields of gold to see what this great country has to offer.