Special Exposure Wednesday: Northwoods Getaway

It was a long ride for a short vacation -- seven hours in the car each way, leaving early Friday morning (3:30am!) and back home by Sunday afternoon. In between, there was a lot of work to do. This was the traditional "close the family cabins for the season" jaunt to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, a brief sojourn at the wooded lakefront property that's been in JoyDad's family since 1950. We stayed in one cabin, JoyDad's father and brother stayed in the other.

It would have been hard to improve this visit, other than making it about a week longer and adding a few more JoyDad-family-members who weren't able to come.

First, the colors were spectacular.


Joy loved all the stuff on the ground to play with: the leaves, the pine needles, the plants and little trees. She even loved the big trees:


We were thrilled by how well she stayed in one area. Something of the dynamic that exists in our fenced back yard (whereby we no longer have to hover over Joy every second in fear of her dashing away) was operating up at the lake too. It extended indoors as well, where she stayed well away from the woodstoves and got into almost nothing she wasn't supposed to get into. She did unusually well at walking on the roads too, where earlier this year she kept making breaks into the woods:


It made walks so very pleasant!


We also got to take the pontoon boat for a spin or two, before hauling it out of the lake to put into storage.


It was so lovely not to be dealing with seizures. Last time we were at the lake, the day-by-day knock-down seizure count was 3, 2, 2, 4 -- each with its attendant recovery fuss. We've had seizures every time we've traveled in the past two years. Except for this weekend, where the counts were 0, 0, 0. Joy neither fussed nor bit herself, almost the entire time we were up there (the ride home didn't quite fit the bite-free pattern, but then who wants to have to leave the lake?)

Joy didn't spend as much time on the pier this visit, having too much fun stimming on shore, but Rose has always loved the pier and took advantage of every possible minute before we had to break it down for the winter. She's an awesome hula-hooper:


And I've saved the best photo for last. This is Rose at the end of the pier at sunrise. Doesn't it just look as if she's about to step into heaven?


Bonus points for anyone who can guess what late-seventies movie image this sunrise shot brought to mind for me, before you click & get the answer!