Young

So a few weeks ago, I had a free weekend, and it happened to be the last weekend of the annual 2 week trip to Young State Park in Boyne City.  My family has been camping there for close to 25 years; this is the first year our small Phillips family of 4 could make it.  The last time Julie and I spent the night up there was 2007, and there were no kids.  It was our last vacation before plunging into medical school.  We had circumnavigated Lake Michigan, and this was our southern leg heading back towards Iowa.

 This time around, we had 2 kids.  I have been wanting to introduce Kyper to this tradition since he was born, but we could never get away.  Now, both kids have experienced Young and both are great campers (I think its genetic).

We left after work Friday afternoon, and drove through traffic, then through rain all the way up.  It took us 6 hours to get there, but that was because of when we left.  Its always a bad idea to leave Detroit on a Friday night to go up north; everybody else is doing the same thing.  We had sent a tent up with my parents, so when we got there, they had it already set up.  I can't imagine trying to set up a tent in the dark at 11PM with 2 small, tired children.  That pre-planning really helped.  

My parents recently bought the Camping Van--a full size sprinter van converted into a camper, complete with all the amenities--after finally getting rid of our 30 year old pop-up camper.  This became our base for the weekend.  It is so nice to have a potty right on the site, when you have a three year old.  All four of us slept comfortably in the tent with no major issues.  The first morning, Anja woke Kyper up at 5, so I took them both down to the water and we were swimming by 6AM. What a true Phillips, you can never start the beach day too soon!

David and Cara were camping with their parents that weekend as well.  Cara is a great friend from my church growing up, and her family had been doing Young for several years as well.  They had their three kids up; Kyper enjoyed playing in the sand with Zeke and Lex.  Caedence is only 9 months old, and was pulling herself up on everything.  Maybe she will be good friends with Anja some day.

David and Cara, among other things, have gotten into photography.  They typically do senior pictures and weddings.  When I heard they were coming up for the weekend, I asked for a short session on the beach, so we could finally get some professional pictures of Anja, and Kyper had not had any recent photo session either.  They were happy to oblige.  Julie insisted on family pictures as well; they turned out amazing.  We got some pictures with blue water in the background, others in the dunes among the beach cherry, and some great ones in the cedars.  You should check their website out at awakenedimages.blogspot.com.  Julie may post some of our session later on.

I got a great sail in with my mom on Saturday afternoon.  The wind was nice and steady, and the waves were just perfect, a few becoming white caps.  Mom enjoyed getting out on the water, since Dad had the boat most of the week, taking as many people out on the water as he could.  Julie and I had some good Kayak rides, with of course diving off the kayak into the crystal blue waters of the north.  

There was a great sunset, and Kyper got to get ice cream from the general store--that was the highlight of his day.  He got "plain chocolate".  The campfire was great, but nothing like we remembered from growing up.  In years past, there had been enough people camping together that there would be an adult fire and a kids fire...typically 20 adults and 30 kids.  The adults traditionally tended to be the louder group.  Probably because us Phillips boys kept the kids fire busy with our pyrotechnic displays (burning milk jugs, nondairy creamer, heating up rocks to boil water...).  So the fire this year was quite subdued.  There were only 7 others...my mom and our friends' parents from church.  It didn't matter anyway; we were in bed by 10:30--completely exhausted from playing with the kids all day.

Going to bed early meant we missed another great Young tradition.  That is, watching the meteor shower on the beach.  This tradition usually involves being real quiet, so the rangers don't find you and kick you off.  Julie got to see some pretty neat stars when she woke up in the middle of the night, though.  Our sleep was definitely more important at that point.  Maybe next year.

On Sunday, Dad and I had a great sail.  Good, steady wind, and whitecaps.  It was wilder than the sail on Saturday with Mom.  Unfortunately, this was the sail to the the boat launch, traditionally, the saddest sail of the year, as we have to say good-bye to Lake Charlevoix.  We were sailing great, on an awesome tack over towards the launch.  The color of the water changed as we sailed over to the shallow side of the drop off.  I warned Dad to watch the centerboard.  It was a good thing we were watching that.  It popped up and we were in 6 inches of water!  We ran out of lake before we were done sailing.  We ended up having to walk it in from the launch.  Oh well, it was fun while it lasted.

We got the kids packed, and drove home.  It took a lot less time to get there, as people stagger their times to get back from up north on Sundays.  Anyway, here are a few of the pictures from the short weekend.  Maybe next year we will take a whole week.