Pure Michigan

I’m back in civilization now after spending a week celebrating “Pure Michigan“. If you had followed us around you would have been able to shoot all the footage needed for a new travel ad, it was also all girl power! I spent last week camping with my dear friend Robyn, from college. I’ve talked about her here before; she is the Army Captain who lives in Chicago. Her husband is from a hometown near mine and we often stop to see them on holiday trips. She is currently enrolled in grad school at DePaul and culinary school. Working to save the world one healthy kid at a time. The timing worked out perfectly that she finished both terms and had a week off from her internship. So we hit the trails, lakes and woods for some much needed R&R.

There is no better way to camp out than with a chef! Now I’ve always considered myself to be pretty stilled with a camp stove but wow Shrimp Scampi! Now that is just so far beyond what I expected to dine on. Add a chilled bottle of wine, a roaring fire and we just melted into our chairs. While I was not the chef I certainly was the fire marshal. I was able to get is a blazer going every night even with the wood soaked from rains. The weather as whole cooperated so well, poor Josh was in 100 degree heat all week. She whipped up veggie burger breakfast burritos and of course we had s’mores. One the one rainy day we headed into Ann Arbor for a visit to the delicious Arbor Brewing Company and a little shopping. Hey we are girls remember.

While running around the woods is all fine and good, I’ve got a sailboat in Michigan, one that was itching to be taken out. Well what if I told you that I took the sailboat out by myself! Oh yeah! Now don’t get too excited it was a very calm day and I only put up one sail but heck, I did it. Robyn had never been on a sailboat and she was a great help. I know that Josh is proud of me, although very jealous. He will likely not have a chance to set her out; we are not due back in Michigan until at least October. Even that might not happen.

To wrap up our Pure Michigan holiday we went horseback riding in Hell. Yup that’s not a typo; Hell Michigan was just a few miles from our campground and the closest stable. Nothing too exciting about the ride, it was fun as they usually are, very slow. We did stop in Hell on our way out for ice cream from Screams. All of the businesses in town are over the top Halloween themed, it was a hoot. I even had to buy a souvenir, just couldn’t resist. So I can now say that I’ve been to Hell and back, ha ha ha.

It was a really fun trip, lots of time laughing and talking about our husbands. Just the perfect trip with a girlfriend.

***This is part of a series of posts called “Travel Tuesday“, each covering topics unique to our lifestyle***