Midas used to love to swim. We would go down to the creek in the woods behind our house, and as soon as there were two inches of water he would be flopped down in it trying to swim. We always talked about how fun it would be to take him to the beach, but just never got to it.
This summer we ended up not doing a "big" vacation. We had just been to St. John in January and it didn't work out to have a big trip in May like we'd done the past few years. So we did two small trips instead - a three day weekend in May to Ohio and Indiana for antiquing and a five day weekend to the dunes in Michigan. It was perfect timing right after summer school and for our anniversary and before Brad needed to go to Norway for work.
We rented a house in Michiana, Michigan which is on the Michigan side of the Indiana/Michigan state line. The neighborhood was pretty wooded and quiet and the house was about a half mile walk from the town beach at Stop 40 (named for the old Lake Shore Drive bus route). We went up on a Saturday and had a picnic lunch and then walked down to check out the beach and wander around the neighborhood. The beach had "dog hours", so we knew we had to wait until the next morning for the pups to go for their first swim. We went into New Buffalo for dinner and ate a restaurant called The Stray Dog - appropriate start to the dog vacation. The place was packed and we enjoyed some burgers and wraps, and picked up some t-shirts with the cute dog logo. We spent most of the evenings of the trip playing with the dogs and doing crossword puzzles on B's phone - that's right, we're that exciting.
The next day we spent the whole day at the beach. We took the pups down first thing in the morning and let them walk along the sand for awhile first and they just waded in a little. Then we got out Lucy's pink frisbee and she just turned into a little fish. She would chase her frisbee into the water over and over again, running up and laying on the sand in between. If no one made a move to steal the frisbee from her and throw it, she would start crying - with the frisbee still in her mouth. Sally was a bit more cautious. When she first tried swimming, she didn't use her back legs at all, just had them pulled up real tight. That first day I kept her on a leash for the most part and would get in the water and coax her to swim out to me. She loosened up and got a little braver as the week went on. Around lunch time we would take the dogs home, hose them off, and put them in their crates for naps. They were completely exhausted after a couple hours at the beach. The pups went for swims three mornings and then also went for walks on the beach two nights, so they got lots of time at the beach. Sally was so good from what I thought she would be and did great being off leash most of the time.
We tried some other local favorite restaurants - Redamak's, Stop 50 Wood Fired Pizza, Oink's Ice Cream, and Mucho Mas. The food was great everywhere. I really enjoyed Mucho Mas - it is a mexican place in LaPorte, IN that is all fresh ingredients. It's run by these two young guys from California. They had great chips and a salsa bar. All things that make me happy :)
We tried to do some antiquing and it was kind of a bust. The places in Michigan we went to just had absolutely nothing - I wasn't even tempted to buy a single thing. We went to two places in LaPorte, but one was closing just as we got there and a couple others weren't open on Tuesdays. We did get to do some shopping at the outlet mall. B and I are super power shoppers and hit like 10 stores in under 2 hours. I got a couple things at Banana Republic and we both found stuff at Puma.
By the time it was time to go home on Wednesday, the dogs were thoroughly warn out. Sally slept pretty much the entire way back. That morning as we were packing stuff up Lucy was just passed out on the kitchen floor...too tired to move.
All in all it was a really nice time. I don't know if I would stay in this same house again, not that there was anything wrong with it, it just wasn't WOW AMAZING. It would be nice to find something even a little closer to the water, though I need to plan a bit more ahead for that. With how much Lucy loved swimming, whether we go here or somewhere else, I definitely want to take her to the water again. I love seeing my girls that happy :)
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