Camping on Lake Superior
Camping Day 2

It didn’t just rain, it stormed.  Camping on Lake Superior makes sound travel quite a distance.  So thunder and lightning illuminated the tent like an all-night fireworks show.  Rain pattered the tent almost constantly and some moments, it sounded like the sky opened up and dumped everything it had on us.

At one point, Nate got up to check on the floor to see how wet it was.  He moved my bags from the side of the bed to the end.  My side of the tent was floating on a large puddle of water that was caught between the tent and the tarp.  It wasn’t leaking in, but it was damp.  He pushed on it to show how it jiggled like a waterbed.

Despite the lack of sleep, I was excited to get up when my alarm went off.  The rain had stopped and soft light and the sound of birds greeted me.  I dressed for the Kingdom Hall along with Cupcake.  At the last minute, the rest of the family decided to join us so they could explore Grand Marais.

I drove carefully down the road through thick fog.  Fog is so beautiful.  The air smells sweet and delicious.  The cool air is comforting and invigorating.  I kind of wish I could start every morning with a beautiful thick lake fog.

The Grand Marais Kingdom Hall was adorable.  It was a small, beautiful building with tall windows along each side.  Every once and awhile a bird would fly by and I’d have to refocus on what was going on inside, rather than the beauty outside.

The talk itself was so good!  The part that stuck with me was a metaphor.  If Jehovah throws us a lifesaver when we’re drowning, it’s up to us to make the effort to reach out.  All the life preservers in the world won’t matter if we don’t make the effort to reach out and grab that help he’s offering us.

After heading back to our campsite, I made bug spray.  The kids ran around playing while I enjoyed my tea.  We were all exhausted so we took a nap.  Once we woke up, we were ready for adventure!

We hiked down acrossTemperance River through the fog.  At the bridge, we used our drone* to take a family portrait.  There was a couple next to us who used to come to Temperance with their kids but this time, they were alone, their children all grown up.  It made me feel like freezing time and holding my babies in my arms.

They’ve grown up so fast.  Before I know it, they’ll have moved on with their lives and I’ll be taking vacations without them.  Right now, they are my little people.  I can protect them, guide them, love them and adore my time with them.  I don’t want to waste a moment.

We had a lot of fun exploring the rocks along the shore.  We’ve never gone past the beach before so we enjoyed going a little further.  Mr. Awesome was having a lot of fun jumping from rock to rock.  I think if we let them, they would have gone along the shore until they were tired.

We wanted to have dinner and relax before it got dark, so we walked back to our campsite.  Princess and I had butter mushrooms for dinner while everyone else had brats.

It was a wonderful day.  Camping on Lake Superior is so peaceful, an experience which could almost tantamount to the time when we’d been camping in Yosemite National Park. That night we crawled into bed and fell asleep to the sound of wind through the trees and slept deeply.

*Note: We found out later after asking a park ranger about their drone policies that drones are no longer allowed at State Parks.  They changed the policy last year.  Drones are interfering with Peregrine Falcon nesting grounds in certain areas.  Rather than police certain areas where they shouldn’t be used, they issued a full ban.  The videos we took with our drone were the only ones we took for the trip.  Birds are more important than getting some pretty footage for videos.

Check out our video from our day!

Did you miss Camping, Day 1?  Read about it here!

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