camping via instagram

my friend becky (who i've known all of my life) is moving to portland in

september and has never been to michigan's upper peninsula, so this weekend

we went camping with two other girlfriends to tahquamenon falls. it was a great time!

it takes about 6 1/2 hours to get there so we left friday morning and headed up. 

once we got there we set up camp (our camping neighbors were very impressed

by how fast we did it), made a fire, ate dinner, relaxed and called it a night. we 

were woken up super early saturday morning by a thunderstorm that rolled in

unexpected. after falling asleep for a few more hours we woke up and checked

the damage. luckily becky woke up as soon as she heard thunder and put most

of the stuff in the car. unfortunately the bottom of her and gabe's tent got super

soaked so we had to hang dry their sleeping bags by the fire. 

(1. cute restaurant we stopped at, 2. gabe and her peppermint patty, 3. becky and gabe's tiny tent, 4. the girls)

(5. our tent, 6. i am the firestarter, 7. i am the s'more eater, 8. good looking fire)

after all of that we ate breakfast and hiked to the lower falls which was right down the road. 

kelly and i weren't really into hiking the four miles to the upper falls so we drove

to them and met up with girls, ate lunch at the brewery there and had a much 

deserved beer. it became a lot less humid once the clouds went away and the sun

came out, so we ended up driving to this bear farm that kelly had seen a pamphlet for

in which they advertised being able to hold and take pictures with baby cubs.

we got there and just in time to see the big bears eat all of their fruit and veggies 

that were laid out for them. off to the baby cubs we went, until we saw a sign

that said starting at the beginning of june a law was put in effect in which customers

couldn't hold or even pet them. wahh wahhhh. either way, we got to see bears up

close and funny sculptures of bears made out of tree stumps.

(9. the upper falls, 10. the lower falls, 11. lazy bear, 12. ET bear!)

later that day we went to whitefish point. it's home of the oldest lighthouse on lake

superior and the great lakes shipwreck museum and the beach is beautiful. our camping

neighbors told us that the water was pretty warm for lake superior (it's usually ice cold)

and as soon as i stood in it i realized they lied. we tried to skip rocks but the waves

wouldn't let us, so i collected a few gems and decided it was time to get back to the campsite.

(13. whitefish point, 14. skipping rocks, 15. gabe!, 16. driftwood bench, 17. the lighthouse)

we ate dinner, made a fire and played what might've been the longest game

of uno in the history of uno. becky claimed she was going to set her alarm 

for three in the morning to see if the northern lights were out (she did, but they weren't).

 (18. heeeeey!, 19. historical marker, 20. two-hearted, 21. heart sign)

(22. sun in my eyes, 23. pb&j making, 24. cute sign, 25. the river & lake superior)

yesterday we hung out at the site for a while then decided to check out

the two-hearted river. we saw a sign the previous day saying that it was 17

miles down the road so we decided to go for it. let me tell you, 17 miles down

a bumpy dirt road doesn't take 20 minutes like you would think... nope, it took 

a little over an hour since we could only go about 10mph. it was pretty sad though, 

because there was a wildfire in june that burnt down so much of the forest. once we got

there though it was gorgeous.

last night we continued our game of uno (i told you it was long) and drank 

by the fire. i was up by 7am this morning and the car was packed and ready 

to go by 8am. it was such a fun trip and going up north is always so beautiful

and relaxing and sometimes i wish i could just stay up there all summer. 

sorry for writing a novel. mostly i want to remember this (i have a horrible memory).

i hope you all had a lovely weekend as well.