Finally: Vacation Pictures

I did a terrible job on vacation photos this year. I forgot there even was such a thing as a camera until it was time to photograph that quilt. Then on the last evening at our cabin I suddenly whipped out the camera and tried to take photos of our cabin after it was really too dark to do it. So these are pretty bad.

We were staying at McIntosh Solitude Cabin on the south shore of Lake Huron, a few miles east of Cheboygan, Michigan. The word "cabin" is a misnomer; this is a full fledged house, with 4 bedrooms, two bathrooms and tons of space for two families to stretch out. We met Wayne and Roseann Stahl there (Wayne is one of Barry's two brothers). It was roughly halfway between our homes, though I think they had a little more of a drive than we did, getting around Lake Erie. Their little one, Sweet Baby E, kept us all hopping for the week. She is a very precocious 3-1/2-year-old bundle of energy and pizzazz.

Anyway, back to the cabin: It's on a piece of private shoreline and is built high up on the bluff overlooking the lake. Wayne thought it was only about 50 feet higher than the shoreline but I think it was quite a bit more. I counted the steps from the house to the shoreline and it is 115, plus then there's a path that goes down further. So we got our exercise going down to the beach. The water is crystal clear and not nearly so cold as Lake Superior's, so the kids spent quite a bit of time being wet. The cabin had several canoes available for guests, and everybody went out in a canoe at some point or another.

We didn't eat out much. Roseann and I figured out dinner menus ahead of time and took turns cooking. She is a wonderful cook. It was great fun cooking for each other rather than spending money at a restaurant! We ate most of our dinners outdoors on the lower deck, because it was the only table big enough to comfortably seat all 8 of us, and it was so relaxing. There was a very nice gas grill, so we grilled a lot; Roseann made wonderful homemade pizzas a couple of times. We all ate way, way too much.

We did a couple of outings (Mackinac Island one day, the Cheboygan County Fair another), but mostly we just hung around the place. We were really unplugged there, as our cell phones wouldn't work, the house phone would not make long distance calls, and there was no Internet. Of course it drove everybody crazy for the first couple of days, but by the end of the week, we were all used to it and enjoying the peace (except for Miss B, who never appreciated it much).

Here are some underexposed photos of the house/cabin.


Yes, that is a stuffed bear on the wall there. This cabin was a taxidermist's dream. I am not a taxidermist, so I didn't appreciate that part of it much.


Photographed from the sleeping loft where Wayne and Roseann slept.



Even the bathrooms were pine!

There was a telescope for viewing passing freighters, and lots of pretty double-hung windows.


This was the view from the upper deck, looking down over the lake.



And that is the upper deck, where we all did a lot of hanging out, and I did my morning prayers.


A blurry photo of the steps to the loft.

Not a good picture but I had to include it because of those two little blurs there dashing through the room - that's Lil Miss A and her cousin Sweet Baby E, playing some wild game. Hilarious!

That's Barry, Wayne, Ro and Miss B. They were looking at the photos Barry has on his Mac.

The cabin from the front yard. Love that porch.