Back in the lower peninsula, we stopped at the park that is right next to and under the bridge. We had planned ahead and made sandwiches for both the trip up as well as the trip back. We took up residence at a picnic table next to the water and had a peaceful lunch... Peaceful, that is, up until...
...until the seagulls showed up. They actually were already there, we just hadn't really paid much attention to them. They were everywhere.
This is Gulliver. When the other seagulls would screech and fly off in a flock of doom, Gulliver wandered over to us and started circling our table.
Gulliver would make his rounds, keeping an eye on us the entire time. He was absolutely convinced that we would eventually get around to feeding him sooner or later. At one point, a child freaked him out and he kinda flew away. Not to be outdone, he came running up as fast as his little gull legs would take him.
Gulliver's patience would not be broken.
This is Bruce, one of Gulliver's friends. Bruce was doing the same thing to this other family. The child was not nearly as much of a fan of Bruce as we were of Gulliver.
Gulliver's patience was indeed rewarded. We decided that if he managed to stick around for our entire lunch and relaxation time, we would toss him a few pretzels. Gulliver takes this round. Well played.
On the way back, we stopped in Traverse City and Interlochen. My brother and I have some property in a heavily wooded and somewhat secluded place in Interlochen. Years ago when I was 4 or 5, I remember camping there with my parents and my brother. It's the only time I really remember camping in a tent in my life. We had made a fire pit out of large stones. It seems that in the last few years since I had been here to check on it some jackass stole all the stones and cut down some of our trees. One day, I'm going to put something on this land.
We also stopped by my grandparent's place. It had been a while since I had been there. I spent the entire time wandering around, pointing out things, and telling Jen about my childhood spending time with my grandparents, fishing with my grandfather, etc. She politely listened to it all, showing me a cute grin as I reconnected with my childhood and telling me that I was cute while remembering it all.
This and the picture before are both from our private boat launch on Cedar Hedge Lake. I remember countless days spent on this lake fishing with my grandfather. The last time I had been up here was June of 2000. I escaped to Interlochen with my computer to write music. No internet, no phone, no contact with anybody. It was exactly what I needed, I wrote 7 songs in 3 days. It also happened to be the weekend where you don't need a license to fish, so I went out for the first time in nearly 5 years with my grandfather on the lake. I was particularly proud of myself because I still remembered all the spots on the lake where the fish bite. Coming back here was strange. I reconnected with a lot of things I had forgotten, and more importantly, I came to understand how much it really meant to me. Being able to share it with Jen meant more to me than I thought it would. We eventually left and found dinner in Traverse City at Hockey Heroes, a restaurant that was also a bit of a hockey museum.
This is the last picture on the camera. We finally made it home around 11:15 that night. While the trip was a lot of fun and extremely relaxing, we were both utterly exhausted. One of my goals was to fill up the digital camera and take every picture I could. This is probably the best way we could have used the last picture.