Grand Island

Yes, our family vacation was this much fun.  :-)

Actually, I hesitated to even say where we went because I didn't want to give away such a fantastic vacation spot.  Some places are better because of their isolation and low traffic volumes.  Isle Royale, for instance.

I should probably mention that it's a bit isolated due to the type of camping available.  You can either take your own boat, backpack, bike, or kayak/canoe your way around the island to the various campsites.  Water is available only in a few locations, otherwise you need to boil or filter.  The forest service is very good about providing bear lockers and poles to keep bears away from your food, and they also supply firewood to prevent the woods from being stripped of its resources.  Other than that, everything you bring has to be packed in and packed back out, which deters the RV campers and makes for a very nice experience for everyone else.  (Nothing against RV-ers, but we would not have had the beach to ourselves if they could gain easy access to the island.) 

The visitor center on the island.  Not typically staffed, but a place for kids to run around.

This Burley stroller has been fabulous. We loaded all our camping gear into it for Matt to haul to our campsite, 3.7 miles away.  Then he biked back to get Clare and I and we all biked to the site.  Clare loved riding in the stroller with her puppy (and the sleeping bags). 

Waiting for the tent to be set up.

You can't get much more idyllic than this.  I loved seeing the water from our campsite!

Our campsite was right on Trout Bay, with a view of Pictured Rocks in the distance.  Gorgeous white sand beach with less than waist deep water for many yards out, and a sandbar beyond that.  

Clare climbed happily into her "cocoon" the first evening, but we couldn't get her into it after that because she likes to move around too much.  Nights were a little chilly for mid July, but she slept soundly with bare feet (she'd pull her socks off) and no covers for three nights in a row.

To think we had this whole expanse of beautiful sandy beach mostly to ourselves!  The next campsite was about .3 miles away.

Eating breakfast with "Apple", as she recently named her lab puppy.

View from our campsite.

We're not really sure what happened with Clare on Monday, but she acted sick, tired, and definitely not herself all day.  By nine pm, after sleeping most of the day away, she was back to her normal self and not at all ready for bed!  Go figure. 

Monday was spent biking to several spots on the island: the famous Trout Bay overlook, and then across the island to Waterfall Beach.  We started on a bike path through the woods that was wide enough for our stroller, but the log water bars spaced periodically to help with run-off made climbing the hills with Clare not so easy.  The trail ended in a sandy, gravelly road that we followed for the rest of our exploring.  Now and then we would cross paths with the tour bus that traverses the island several times a day. 

Trout Bay overlook.

On Waterfall Beach, Clare still feeling crummy.

View from Waterfall Beach Overlook on the opposite side of the island from where we'd camped.

Sound asleep in the Burley for her second long nap of the day. 

I love snuggling with her; she doesn't put up with this when she's well.

The second morning there we discovered blueberries growing right by our campsite. All the blueberry plants in the woods were missing their leaves due to some unknown factor (the ranger there didn't know) but the plants by the shore were full of blue.

Tuesday was warm and sunny: a perfect beach day.  It took Clare awhile to warm up to the sand and water.

A typical road on the island.

When I was doing my research for this trip, I had no idea what to picture for a "ferry" that would take both people and bicycles over to the island.  Well, here it is: 

A simple pontoon boat that worked very well to ferry people and their gear over to the island (a trip that lasts about 10 minutes, as opposed to the five hours it takes to get to Isle Royale).  Our captain on the way back told us they'd used the Pictured Rocks tour boat ferries for awhile but they were too big to be practical for Grand Island. 

After three nights and four fun-filled days on Grand Island, we drove into Grand Marais for the remainder of the week.  The campground was quieter by far than it is during the 4th of July.  We had no trouble getting a very nice, rustic campsite right near the playground.

I could come to Grand Marais every summer and multiple times a summer.  Not only is it fun being back in my old stomping ground, having lived here from second through fifth grades, but it's such a cute little town with quiet streets, church bells playing songs at noon and in the evening, great beaches, and good (though expensive) food and ice cream.

We ate lunch on Thursday at a local diner, ham and pineapple pizza with the pineapple cut off the rind just before it was popped into the oven.  Everything is homemade there and if you order pasty you need to wait at least 45 minutes while they make and bake it.  They give a big bowl of peanuts as an appetizer.  Clare had fun learning how to crack the shells. 

Those Cabela's points sure come in handy!  This has been a great car-camping stove.  And I can't take credit for that delicious looking omelet with hash browns, and neither can Clare.  ;-)

Clare LOVED this beach, though we all got way too much sun. The water was both calm and shallow - perfect!

Our campsite had a very nice little playground close by.  We spent our last evening in GM here.

"Apple's" turn for the swing.

Sunset in Grand Marais

The 'Yota.  209,000 miles and still a great truck.

Before we left town, we stopped at the School Forest for some blueberry picking.  Clare had a great time at first but then started to get hot and tired.  Between the three of us, we picked a quart of those sweet, tasty wild blueberries.  I would have loved to get more but the berries were pretty small and the picking was taking longer than Clare had patience for.

All in all, it was a great trip and we're already talking about how we could do Grand Island again next year with an eight-month-old.  Very doable with a double jogging stroller, I think.