June 11 Perfect Day

Wednesday:  Perfect days don't come every single week ... or month, for that matter. But today, I had a perfect day! I have a friend--Gail--who lives in a cottage-type of home one block off Lake Michigan, at Pere Marquette beach. Our friendship goes back 25 years or so. She is very precious to me. The Lord has always ALWAYS given me rich and solid friendships all through my life, and I am so thankful to Him for this. Gail has a very busy life with most of her family being out of state (including all 5 of her grandchildren) ... so she travels a lot to see them. Anyway, we usually only get together 2x per year ... and today was one of those days!

We met for lunch at Grand Traverse Pie Company (in Muskegon) at 12:30. It seemed like a blink of an eye and it was 4:39 when we checked the time. We had talked nonstop for FOUR hours ... just catching up on each others' lives! When we decided to check the time, both of us thought it might be somewhere around 3:00--we were so surprised to see the actual time. That's how it is when you really enjoy being with someone, isn't it?

We snapped this "selfie" just as we were about to go our separate ways. It's TERRIBLE of us! We actually took 5 pictures and this is the best of them--yikes. My friend, Gail, is BEAUTIFUL. Pictures are so inadequate!

By the time we said our good-byes it was 5pm. I knew I was only about 10 minutes from Grand Haven. I couldn't possibly be THIS close and not see my beautiful Lake Michigan! So I went.

Here are about 40 pictures to prove it! I almost always spend more time on the north side of the channel than on the busier side--besides, I like photographing the lights from this point of view better than being right on top of them on the other pier.

This is the north shore of Grand Haven, where obviously wealthier folk have their "cottages." Ha!

I've had a love affair with this place ever first seeing it in 1971 ...

I literally have thousands of pictures of these lights ... but I can never resist taking more.

Red is my absolute favorite color for a lighthouse ... white is my next favorite.

I don't have many photographs of the lighthouses from up on this small dune . . . I could just sneak my camera through the opening in these branches. I like it very much!

As I walked to the end of the north pier, I noticed something very weird happening to my little lighthouse. What on earth was going on?!!

I finally couldn't stand NOT knowing why there was a "cherry picker" leaning against my lighthouse, so I drove out of Ferrysburg to Grand Haven to take a closer look. By the time I found a parking place, I missed this rather large vessel exiting the channel. Rats. At least it wasn't a magnificent freighter! I think it was some kind of a dredge.

I very awkwardly (with an emphasis on VERY) climbed up this dune and shot the pictures below ...

I walked the nicely renovated pier to the very end ...

Finally!! I reached my little light (it's MINE!) and discovered it was being POWER washed! I had no idea lighthouses received power washes, did you?

Don't you love the affect of the sun on the water?

Look! What a lucky duck this dude is to be POWER WASHING a lighthouse!

It was a perfectly windy day today and there were many sailboats taking full advantage of it. I love sailboats.

On this side of the pier, the waves were enough for the surfers to be out ... some of them were pretty good too!

I only stayed at the lake for about two hours, but it was PERFECT. I met so many nice people out walking their dogs, or just families walking the pier, teens asking me to take their photos ... it was very fun. 

Thank you for Lake Michigan, Lord. I love it so much.