Mid-Weekend Getaway

            It may be a sign of age that we cannot always remember what day it is. It may also be a sign of retirement, where we can declare our weekend activities to take place Wednesday through Friday. You call it senility; I call it flexibility.

            Another sign of flexibility is making the best of your circumstances. We planned a trip to one of our favorite bed and breakfasts in Whitehall, Michigan – the Cocoa Cottage Bed and Breakfast. We planned to walk on the sunny beach, maybe wading in a bit, do some antiquing, and possibly even photograph some butterflies before dining at one of the highly-rated restaurants in town.

            The weather was relentlessly cool, cloudy, and very windy, with a few rain showers. So our beach walk became a photo-op.

            We saw some birds, but we did not have the right lens to photograph them, so instead Kim created a birdscape.

         

            And we were with friends, which makes all the difference in the world.

  

            We ventured out on the jetty framing the channel connecting White Lake to Lake Michigan, which was a lot more fun than sitting around complaining about the weather.

Kim catches a wave.

These waves are big!

This is Genne's kind of wave - so big and close it makes you want to pee your pants!

That's why this was exciting!

            The afternoon found the weather unchanged, so we returned to the other side of the channel to photograph the White River Light Station . . .

and the waves and threatening sky.

    

            It was too windy for butterflies, but we did photograph a Monarch caterpillar munching away with no apparent concern about wind.

        

            Charmaine was sick with either a cold or allergies, plus some sort of ear problem. Fortunately, Kim had some pink pills, and we were a short walk from a drug store. And even more fortunately, we’d brought another medicine – enough scotch and Drambue to make Rusty Nails. I’m not sure if the alcohol helped Charmaine much, and she drank very little, but the “medicine” did help the rest of us feel better.

            The restaurants, we found, were somewhat lacking, which did not stop us from eating. The one with great food, alas, did not serve wine, and the one that served wine did not have the best food. But we were with friends. And the quality (and quantity) of our Cocoa Cottage breakfasts more than made up for culinary shortcomings elsewhere.

            You may be wondering why we have no photographs of the beautiful authentic details, or the food, that grace Cocoa Cottage. The simple fact is that we were enjoying ourselves so much (the eating, the abundant chocolates, the conversations, did I mention Rusty Nails?) that we forgot to take pictures.