Our very sweet sister retreat ...

My only sister's name is Ruthanne. She lives in Detroit. When I was a little girl, there was no one I wanted to imitate more than her. I wanted to grow up and LOOK EXACTLY LIKE HER and BE JUST LIKE HER! For the past couple of years, we've tried to "get away" for a little while during the summer and spend a few days together, just the two of us.Our first retreat was up in Frankfort. The following two years we went up to Charlevoix ... two years in a row because we LOVED Charlevoix! The fourth year we were in the Manistee area. Last year, we were in Traverse City and thereabouts. And this year, we stayed in Ludington ... starting with Sunday afternoon through Wednesday afternoon ... and kind of shopped in and around the little towns nearby. When we arrived Sunday, we looked around the shops in downtown Ludington (the rare ones that were open) but the weather was kind of "wet" so we decided to see a movie ~ something we rarely do. We took in "Julia & Julie" and enjoyed it so much! If you like true stories, you should go and see it!

Monday morning was kind of windy and drizzly, so we drove down to Pentwater and looked around the shops there, ate a yummy lunch, got caught in the rain and began to feel a bit discouraged about the weather. We drove back to Ludington hoping the rain would "go away" enough to where we could enjoy a nice long walk on the beach ...

... and we did exactly that! I think we probably walked 5-6 miles Monday afternoon all along this beautiful sandy beach. What a joy!

Isn't this white moth incredible?! And the sand was SO soft between our toes! When we finished our walk and sat on the beach for a little while, we ate a delicious dinner ... but we ate at so many different and delicious places, I can't remember which nights we ate where! But while in Ludington, we enjoyed dinners at the James Street Station, PM Steamers, and I think Brenda's Harbor Cafe'.

We looked forward to seeing a beautiful sunset Monday night ... and we were NOT disappointed!

"The LORD Almighty will mount his throne ... there will be such glory that the brightness of the sun and moon will seem to fade!" Isaiah 24.23-24

This is the 57' Ludington North Breakwater Light. It's one of the most unusual lighthouses I have ever seen. This is the third time I have seen it, but never before at sunset.

Isn't God a magnificent Creator!? The colors of the clouds and the sky were SO gorgeous!

This is a very lengthy breakwater ~ almost a mile! After our very long walk earlier that afternoon, we were tired! But we walked the entire length anyway ... because it was there!

Isn't that deep pink color stunning?

And then it was dark! Earlier in the day, Ruthanne had purchased a word game for us to play ~ Apple Scrabble ~ a game kind of like Bananagrams but even more fun. We played a couple of rounds of that and then ... went to bed!

Tuesday morning we had planned to drive up to Manistee and do a little looking around at their shops, just to pass the morning away. We really didn't intend to drive to the lighthouse, but the signs leading to the business district pointed this direction and before we knew it ... here we were at this beautiful location ... and there it was ~ the Manistee North Pierhead Light!

The year we stayed in Manistee, we took about a half million pictures of this lighthouse ... so we only snapped just a very few this time around. I do love this light, though ... so beautiful and white.

We were very surprised to find half the shops closed in Manistee. We talked to a few of the remaining business owners who told us how difficult the economy has been for their small town. We thought downtown Manistee looked almost like a ghostown compared to what it was even three years ago when we stayed there.

Our only plan for Tuesday afternoon was to drive to the State Park in Ludington and then take the almost two-mile walk to Big Sable Point Light, first known as Grande Pointe au Sable, meaning big point of sand. I had seen and photographed it just about a year ago ... but I was so glad to have another opportunity to see it and share its beauty with Ruthanne!

Do you see the little frog? We kept seeing them now and again swimming along near the water's edge. I tried to catch one, but they were all too quick for me! They were very tiny and really fast!

This little seagull walked ahead of us for quite a long time, leading us right up to the lighthouse ... what a sight!

We walked straight into a headwind exceeding 20 mph the entire two miles to the light. I noticed that the beach was so much narrower than last year ... and we learned that the lake level is up five feet compared to last year!

Ruthanne said this lighthouse reminded her of LEGO's ... and it kind of does that to me too! But it is one of my very favorite lighthouses ... it's just everything a person would want a lighthouse to be, isn't it? I'm just going to run a few more pictures of it for you to see ...

You can either walk the two miles along the beach right next to Lake Michigan, or you can take the trail by the dunes that leads you to the camp grounds. It's actually easier to walk the trail because at least it is level and there is hardly any wind there ... but the beach walk is so much prettier. I love this view of Big Point Sable ...

We paid our two bucks and climbed all 130 steps to the top ... and were rewarded with this breathtaking view ...

It's a feeling of being on top of the world ... I could have stayed forever ... except it was SO COLD up there! The wind was SO strong ...

I took very similar pictures of Little Point Sable about six weeks ago ... this tower was built first and Little Sable is actually a duplicate of this ~ uniquely painted so that it is distinct ... but definitely a duplicate.

One of the beautiful alcoves inside the tower ...

... and another shot of the shadow of the tower on the dunes ...

I walked north on the beach a little way and climbed some smaller dunes ... can you see Ruthanne in the lower right corner of this picture? We didn't take any close-up pictures of each other because we don't like having our picture taken! But if you look closely, you can see her.

See the small metal structure at the right of the picture on the horizon? It had been assembled there the very morning we were there! It is the base of the fog station that is going to be built in the next few weeks. Won't it be wonderful to hear a fog horn right here? I love the sound of a fog horn! Here are a few more of my favorite pictures of this amazingly beautiful place ...

Before we started back, I climbed the highest dune I could find and took a couple of pictures ... until I ran into signs saying: "To prevent erosion, keep off dunes" and then there were ropes preventing further climbing. That's okay. I didn't want to hurt these beautiful sand dunes.

We decided to take the flat pathway south, a 1.8 mile walk back to the car. We were surrounded on both sides by high pristine dunes, little swampy areas, pools of water, and the sound of Lake Michigan waves crashing into the beach ...

To view the sunset Tuesday night in Ludington, we decided to try a different spot to see if we could get a more interesting angle of the Ludington Light against the sunset ...

... but the south breakwater we intended to walk on was difficult to get to ... so we settled for a smaller one kind of in the middle of the channel. We got pretty decent pictures but the sky the previous night had been so much prettier with all of those amazing clouds.

Here are some of the beautiful flowers from Montague/Whitehall, where we shopped Wednesday morning. What cute little twin towns!

This was the view we had as we ate lunch at a beautiful cafe overlooking the White River ...

And this beautiful deer was wandering around near a marina by White River ...

We had a very uneventful first two days of our retreat, never even taking one wrong turn during all of our small-town excursions ~ but Wednesday we were both kind of "off" and had several misadventures, too embarrassing to actually disclose! I will share one of them however. We had plans to meet Nana and Roy for dinner in Grand Rapids at 5:00 but wanted to "freshen up" at my house before meeting them over at Olive Garden. Earlier in the afternoon, I realized I left home without taking my house key. Since Mr. Jones is gone every Wednesday afternoon all the way across town and doesn't return home until evening, we were locked out of the house! Sigh. Mr. Jones faithfully locks each and every door ... and I didn't have a phone number to reach him! I remembered that Dylan had a house key ... but I didn't have his cell phone number with me ... !! I had only been over to his house one time over in Eastown, but I actually remembered WHERE it was. We drove there only to find out that Dylan was in Chicago for the day! I ended up finally just breaking into our house! I won't tell you how I accomplished it ... but it was frightening to find how simple it was to do! Ruthanne and I were able to get cleaned up and enjoyed a very nice dinner with Nana and Roy.

Too soon it was time to say good-bye to Ruthanne ... our sixth annual sister's retreat had come to an end. But we had such a good time and had such great talks. Ruthanne has been memorizing Scripture this year. So far, she has memorized Psalm One, the entire letter to Titus, Romans chapter eight, and is finishing up Paul's letter to the Colossians! She shared with me the method she is using to memorize and told me many stories of how the Lord is using His Word to change her heart and her life. So ... I've decided it's time for me to copy my sister once again ...