Vacation

Every year IU has a big recruiting event for first year students called "Round Tables." Tons of companies come to introduce students to the industry. Bosch asked Tom to accompany the HR director to the recruiting night to talk to students about the JMP program. Tom was really excited to be able to return to IU. It was weird to be going back as a recruiter instead of a student. It has only been a few months since we left IU. He had a blast though and was able to see 10 other people from his graduating class as well as many friends who are still students. I was able to drive down with Tom and so I spent two days visiting old friends. I hung out with Laura and Ella while Tom was at all of his recruiting events. On Thursday, I got to go to our old playgroup and see friends Chelsey and Lesly and their kids. It was so fun and it felt like I had never left. I missed them so much. Ainsley had a blast too and she loved seeing her old friends again.


For our labor day vacation, we decided to head north to see some of Michigan's Upper Peninsula. We left Indiana on Thursday and drove up to northern Michigan. We crossed the huge Mackinaw Bridge that spans the straits of Lake Michigan and Lake Huron. Then we took a ferry to the tiny and charming Mackinac Island. We loved it there. It was so quaint and picturesque. They do not allow any motorized vehicles on the island so everyone gets around on either bicycles or by horse drawn carriage. Main Street was filled with cute tourist shops and fudge shops. All of the homes on the island are Victorian Style and are absolutely adorable. We had fun picking out our future vacation home:) We walked to the Mackinac Island Butterfly House which is a butterfly conservatory. It is a greenhouse full of flowers and butterflies. They breed the butterflies and then let them fly around the greenhouse. We saw hundreds of butterflies everywhere we looked. Ainsley loved it, she kept wanting to pet them. Then we walked up the hill to Fort Mackinac which was an old British Fort. It began to rain while we were visiting the fort. From the fort, we could see the Grand Hotel. It is where the movie, "Somewhere in Time" was filmed. We didn't walk down to the hotel though because it was quite far and it continued to rain heavily on and off. We returned to Main Street and shopped before taking the ferry back to our hotel on the mainland.






The next morning we got up early and drove to Tahquamenon Falls. It is a series of large waterfalls along a river. It was raining like crazy as we walked along the boardwalks. As we were returning from one of the smaller falls, I had an umbrella covering me and I was looking down just ahead of me when all of a sudden I hear, "Bethany, Bethany Butler!" I look up and see my old friend and neighbor Michelle Davis Sadler! We have known each other since we were four years old. We lived next door to each other for many years and our parents are best friends. I hadn't seen her for at least 6-7 years because she lives in Ann Arbor. I had emailed her and we had been meaning to get together, but hadn't yet. It was such a funny coincidence to run into her at the waterfalls because we were at least five hours away from either of our homes. We toured the last of the falls together and had fun catching up.

Next we headed up to Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. It is a national park along Lake Superior. Luckily the rain stopped and we were able to enjoy a beautiful day at the park. We went to several beaches. It was gorgeous. The lake was so blue, and in parts almost an emerald green. The beaches looked just like the ocean with rolling waves and white sands. We wish it had been warmer so we could have gone swimming. There were several people braver than I who were. I did stick my toes in and jump a few waves. Unfortunately, typical Ainsley did not like the waves. They freaked her out and she wouldn't get near them. We would have to carry her near the water and she would start crying. We had a picnic at on of the beaches. It was a lot of fun.



That evening, we took a boat cruise on the lake. We were told it was the best way to see the beautiful sandstone rock formations along the coast. They were right. We took a sunset cruise and the rocks were gorgeous as the sun set on them. Unfortunately, it was a really rocky boat ride and Tom got really sea sick. He spent most of the three hour cruise outside in the back trying not to lose his dinner. I am not sure he enjoyed it as much as Ainsley and I did. (Don't worry, he wasn't the only one on the boat that got sick, people were dropping like flies on that thing...it was really rocky.)



Our last morning, we headed to another waterfall called Munising Falls. We saw about 5-6 different falls on this trip. Ainsley loved them. Then we drove to the northern part of the park to see the Grand Sable Dunes. We stopped by a Log Slide, where early settlers had done a lot of logging. They used the dunes to roll logs down into the lake to be picked up by boats and shipped to other parts of the country. It was a really steep sand dune. We watched a bunch of kids run all the way to the bottom of the dune and into the lake. We weren't adventurous enough to do it our self because it was a 500-600 foot climb back up the dunes....we're just too old now:) But it looked fun.



Our last stop on our trip was to see the Soo Locks which is where freightors pass through when going from Lake Huron to Lake Superior. It was really neat to watch. We saw two different boats go through the locks including the Paul R. Tergirtha which is the largest ship on the Great Lakes today. It was 1,013 feet long. When they enter the lock, the water level has to rise 21 feet before they can pass from one lake to the other. It was really neat to see.

We had a great trip. It was fun to see a part of the country we had never seen before. We know we are only hear for a few more months and so we wanted to take advantage and visit something new. Who knows if we'll ever have a chance again? Yet again, we could be coming back in a year and a half...we never know.