Michigan vacation--Houghton Lake

So, what does one do in Houghton Lake Michigan? Perhaps first I should answer the question as to why we went to Houghton Lake. We wanted to take a couple of days vacation in MI, and I was already in Bay City with Mom Weiss. Steve didn't want to drive too far (he wasn't missing any work, this was Labor Day weekend), so it didn't seem to make sense to drive across the state. I wanted to be near some water. Oh my, what does one do in Houghton Lake if you don't have a boat? It turns out that there are not any really great place to hike either.... Even the locals working at the hotel said, "Go putt-putt golfing." I said, we did that yesterday. There are about four putt-putt places to choose from, soooo, we went again! Steve and I walked to a gas station and bought a deck of cards and later we drove to K-Mart and picked up a Scrabble game. Steve and I used the Scrabble, but the kids never did break open the deck of cards.

We did find a clean, new park which it didn't appear anyone else knew about to have church at on Sunday morning. ...but Steve talked about suffering and I felt like he was preaching at me...even though he wasn't.This picture is from AFTER church :-)

We drove to Higgins lake State Park after "church" which is supposed to be even more beautiful...

We paid to get into the park, didn't have lunch, so we just snacked on chips and salsa...left the park to hike at a smaller lake the next road over...

It was okay, but nothing real gorgeous...

Higgins Lake was a very busy lake. At the state park there was a sand volleyball court and we played a couple of games of two on two. I jammed a finger on my right hand (which still is not right :-( ) The hotel that we got for the first night, which they advertised as beach front, with breakfast, was very not what we had hoped for, especially for the price. The "beach" was very disappointing...it included a balcony, which was nice, but you could usually smell someone smoking when you sat out on the balcony (that is after I got them to bring us chairs for the balcony)Anyway...I'm worried about my kids having a nice time and about the money, so at this point it caused me to be a bit...something, not nice...Everyone else was a good sport and didn't complain. Tyler took a lot of pictures of the boaters with his new lens. We moved to a different hotel the next night. Although it was not "beachside" it was a great improvement. We found another really nice place to putt-putt, which was fun--but I never do very well at that either---it's a good thing I don't care that much about being the best at anything.Enough pictures! There really wasn't much more to document, but I do want to tell you that although I struggled with having a good attitude I did come out thankful as I recalled all of the wonderful vacations we have had in the past. These were mostly due to the fact that experienced travelers either planned them for or with us or provided a very lovely location and lodgings for us to enjoy. It will be a Labor Day vacation to remember and laugh about.