Category Archives: Detour

So I don’t really care for the term “babymoon” but the term seems to be getting used quite a bit and it makes sense – so we did our “babymoon” at The Quarry. The concept is that the couple about to have their baby takes one last weekend away, alone, and enjoys their last hurrah as a child free couple PRIOR to baby arrival. I just don’t quite think the term is a perfect pairing with the event if you consider a honeymoon happens AFTER the wedding. But I digress…

The wife and I did the babymoon thing this last weekend. Surprisingly, it was her decision to go back up north and have a quiet camping weekend. We weren’t planning on doing anything fancy, but when she said she wanted to go north, I wasn’t going to say no to a chance to camp. At 32.5 weeks pregnant, I was pretty surprised by her request. Who am I to say no to a preggo?

We had a great time up there as usual. There was a short rain storm as we set up camp and another one over the first night, and we had to break out the inflatable mattress on night two as the built in mattress wasn’t quite doing the trick for her. But other than that everything was flawless.

Guess what? I made photos! Surprised? No? I didn’t think so. Here are a few of the highlights from the weekend. Not surprisingly, most of the images ended up being of Sarah.

Her focus on the weekend was sitting in the sun, napping in the sun, and swimming in the sun. Mission accomplished.

A few seconds later….

This last weekend, my wife and I went back up to The Quarry for a quiet weekend by ourselves – one of the very last before baby comes. I wanted to get a good last chunk of rocks mined and Sarah wanted to get a good chunk of beach time in. Both were accomplished.

I’ll get photos up in another post coming soon from the weekend, but first I wanted to dedicate a post to just rocks. Wow. That sounds lame as hell. Ha! But either way, as an update to the post I put up last week dedicated to the beach, here is what I accomplished this weekend:

Last week my father and I decided to take a road trip up to the UP and visit my grandfather’s water lot that I discussed here and here. It took us a little time to get there but it was really nice to spend time with him, just the two of us. We decided that we probably haven’t spent that much time alone together in since the 90s, and even then didn’t come up with an exact.

On Tuesday morning I headed over to Williamston, grabbed the old man and headed to Flint to see his old man. Grandpa has offered to let me use his old camper if I can get it in working order so we stopped at his place to get the keys. From there dad and I headed north and got to Mackinaw City around 6 pm and called it a day. You ever been there during the off season? Yeah, didn’t think so. Not very many people have. That place was a ghost town, no one on the streets and none of the shops were open. There was only about 3 places open to eat out of the normal 30….

because they’re not. It’s their right to handle this however the hell they want. If they agree on it, I guess that’s what matters. I can hope and dream and do the best I can to influence – but they have the right and will do whatever they want in regard to how this land is handled. I’m just venting and wishing is all…. Ever since that time in 2003 (I was just shy of 23 years old – how does a 22 year-old contemplate the future of a “retirement plot” when he’s still not done with college?) I have dreamed of having a very tiny little cottage on that land and spending chilly fall nights in it with a little fire going, writing a novel, and perfecting my photo skills on the surrounding land. Ever since that first weekend, I have been madly in love with that spot and everything about Detour. It is often in my dreams.

On the other hand, I am incredibly spoiled. In 2005, just before my 25th birthday, I closed on a house and met my future wife all in the same week. THAT was a great week. The spoiled part? The wife’s family has a quaint little summer cottage on Old Mission Peninsula …

So, I’ve spent the last several days researching the value of a lot of land that my grandfather owns. It’s in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, in the southeast corner in Detour Township and sits on 100 feet of Lake Huron. He has owned it since 1993 and has never done any improvements to it. It’s near-raw land with thick white pine forest; it has a clearing on it just wide enough to turn a vehicle around and pop a tent on a little over half acre parcel. No one ever goes there, except me.

I learned of the lot in 2003 and instantly knew it’s potential as an amazing way to reach the Michigander’s “American Dream” of owning a piece of the great lakes. In the seven years I have been going, I have gone maybe a dozen times? In that time I am the only one that has been there, other than in passing. From time to time I would do some improvements, like make a path or build a fire pit, and the family would go by to see what I did. But largely, no one goes. This piece of land means so much to me, it is so close to me. It is where I first learned the beauty of the outdoors and to be by myself. I have sat around that fire multiple nights and just written in journals, and reflected about my past and my future. That lot found itself rooted inside me. From that time in 2003, I knew that someday I would own that land.

My family does not want the land. This is not good, as I have no say …