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Honeymoon But With Kids: Fayette Historic State Park, Kitch-iti-kipi and Lake Michigan Camping

Day 6

This day would see us exploring the south shore of the Upper Peninsula, which is oddly the North Shore of Lake Michigan.


We luckily had a break in the rain when we headed to Fayette Historic State Park. We were surprised to see an almost empty parking lot when we arrived.

This was one of our favorite stops 10 years back.

Theo found something stinky in the old furnaces.



Eventually Meadow wasn't bored.



It's kind of amazing how much survived after it was no longer a vacation town.


I was hoping more restoration had been done since our last visit but that didn't seem to be the case. 

I think they wanted to maintain this weathered look, but the roofs had started growing moss.

It was still fun to revisit. 







It's hard to imagine this place being a bustling town. 

Scott taught the kids how to play checkers in the children's exhibit. This would spark their obsession with the game for the rest of the trip. 

Someone wasn't happy that he lost. 

This kid cannot stand losing.

Up in the music hall I tried recreating a photo from when we were here last.

So close. 

I thought I did a pretty good job.

Theo was still upset about losing but dancing helped him cheer up. 

This was the supervisors house. I don't remember this being open before. 

Recreating another photo. 

When leaving the park we saw as sign for the Port Bar

Before leaving the park we picked up a travel checkers game at the gift shop. 

I chose the bowl of chili knowing that I'd probably have to eat some of the kids food. 

This was one of my favorite meal of the whole trip. Good fried chicken is something special.



Next we headed up to Palm Books State Park. I was surprised to see how busy it was on a day like today.

People love Kitchi-Iti-Kipi.







This young family asked me to take a photo of them. In exchange she took a photo of us. This was the best we got. 

Even after coming here before this place is still really cool to see.


Surprisingly, we got Theo to spin the wheel that moves the raft.

Theo was an old pro at this. 

It continued to rain all day. It was supposed to be ending soon after we arrived at our next campsite. We got our rain gear on and played on the beach until the rain stopped enough to set up camp. 

 I like Brooke's pictures because they show how it really was versus my dreamy pics.

We had hoped the weather would have been better so we could swim. 



Theo took the waterproof nature of his rain suit a little too far.



Right after we got our camp setup the sun came back out. Many of the campsites at Lake Michigan at St. Ignace are perched above the dunes with their own beach access. We were on the other side of the road closer to highway, but one of our neighbors let us sneak through their campsite.

We had a small instant ramen dinner after the big lunch at the Port Bar.

After dinner we quickly ran back to the beach for sunset. 



We stayed all the way until the last light passed us by.

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