Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, the back story and sum up

At the end of the last school year, Miciah mentioned to her teacher that she liked camping.  The teacher said, "Oh, then I know a place you'd love.  It's called Pictured Rocks."  She then showed Miciah pictures and Miciah came home chatting us up about this place and how we should go and how fun it would be, etc., etc.

Well, I'd never even heard of the place.  Yeah, the pictures looked cool, but where was it?  Michigan?  By Lake Superior?  Umm, big deal.

We looked into it.  There was camping, sure, and hiking, but according to the website, it was cold most of the year, even in summer, and the water was FRIGID.  It said repeatedly, "Don't go in it.  It's dangerous."  And this is from the website that's trying to advertise all the cool features of the Park!  We decided we'd skip any canoeing, kayaking, or swimming ideas we'd previously had, and just do the boat cruise along the shoreline.

In short, this was a trip that we planned for our daughter because she was excited.  Also, because we'd never been there before, in fact we'd never even been into Michigan beyond the Detroit airport (I just assumed Michigan looked like more of Ohio), and because we like going new places.  And the pictures did look pretty cool.

So, with such a simple trip planned, now we were only waiting for the time and money.  Last year it didn't work out, obviously, but this year we decided to go for it!  The Florida trip was awesome, and it didn't cost us much (once Rob's work reimbursed us for mileage, we spent less than $100 out of pocket - for everything), so we had the money left for Pictured Rocks.

IT WAS AMAZING.

I fell in love with it and by the end of the week, I was so sad to leave.  Seriously, I almost cried when we got back to Cincinnati.  Who knew that Michigan's Upper Penninsula was SO GORGEOUS?!  Rob said, "See?  Cincinnati is pretty, too.  With these trees and all the houses and the city."  I looked at him with a pained look on my face and said woundedly, "Please don't ever say that again."  Rob was trying to be funny, but I had hardcore fallen in love with the U.P. and was already trying to figure out how quickly we could get back there.

Not that Cincinnati isn't a lovely place.  I like Cincinnati, and I do think it's pretty here.  But the U.P. spoke to my soul.  There's just ... something about it.  I can't describe it.  But I need that place.

Pictures and a short re-cap to come.  (There isn't much to re-cap.  We drove there.  We camped.  We hiked.  We looked at waterfalls.  We did a boat tour.  We came home.)