One Year

Aaron and I have successfully made a trip around the sun as man and wife. To celebrate, we went on a "camping road trip" along the West Coast of Michigan. I used quotations because I think this could also be appropriately termed "Aaron's plan for a Western MI brewery tour". Nonetheless, we had a blast! And Avett (and Harken) got some quality bonding time in with his Bollwahn grandparents!

We spent our first night at Young State Park. We stopped in Petoskey along the way and enjoyed some beer and a game of scrabble (I won) at Beard's Brewery then had some lunch and Gelato before hitting up Petoskey Brewery. We had a beautiful view of the lake from our campsite, but it was hard to notice with our neighbors large projection screen TV. 

In the morning we stopped in Charlevoix to gawk at the enormous homes and yachts in and around the marina. During our next leg of the trip, we stopped at Aaron's favorite brewery, Short's. While we were there the sky turned gray and it started storming. We drove through Traverse City and took the scenic route through The Sleeping Bear Dunes. The skies cleared up and we enjoyed some hiking up these beautiful, deceptively large dunes. 

Our second campsite was at Ludington State Park. It was a beautiful drive into the site along the lake and beautiful beaches. Across from our site was another smaller lake, Hamlin Lake, that I woke up early to watch the sun rise over. Afterwards, Aaron and I hiked out to the Big Sable Lighthouse. It was extraordinarily windy, especially at the top! On our way out of town, we had to reward our hike with (a double scoop of) ice-cream. 

Our final campsite was at Hoffmaster State Park, just north of Grand Haven. After we set up, we drove downtown and did some shopping and stopped at a newly opened brewery called The Armory. Then we drove to the lighthouse and watched crazy people surf, kite surf, and parasail off the big swells coming off the lake. In the morning we went on a walk along the river that started behind our campsite and led us out to Lake Michigan. 

Before we went home, we stopped in Holland. We of course had to stop at New Holland Brewery and went a few doors down to Our Brewery. We did some shopping and drove out to their lighthouse before going home to see our babies.