In The Summertime, When The Living Is Free
I just got back from a week of vacation with my late husband’s family. If you have read my previous blogs you know that I have been blessed with in-laws that still treat me as family and include me and my children and grandchildren in their plans. Each July we gather in a resort town on the shore of Lake Michigan.
Ludington
The family has been coming here ever since my husband was 7 years old. This year was their sixty-third year here and my forty-seventh. My husband’s Mother and Father found this place quite by accident. When Ken was 7 he had a kidney condition that his doctors wanted to remedy by removing a kidney. My Mother-in-Law refused to give permission and insisted on taking him to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester Minnesota.
On the way home, not wanting to drive through Chicago on the way back to Indiana, they took the ferry from Wisconsin to Michigan and landed in Ludington. They immediately fell in love with it and the rest, as they say, is history.
Reunion
The family is spread over the whole country so this vacation is one, huge, reunion. We have members in Michigan, Indiana, California, Colorado and New Jersey. We take the entire week to catch up on everyone’s news, individually and collectively. It’s exciting to see new babies, hear about new job opportunities and retirement plans, but we also do a lot of reflecting on the past.
In addition to my husband, we have suffered other losses – both his parents and a nephew who died of lymphoma at the age of 22 years. Everywhere we look, we see a memory. It can be hard, but it is also comforting to share joys and sorrows.
Camping
We all stay at the same motel. Since I have been in the family, this is the third motel we have used. The first one with a pool. My husband was still living when the family moved to this place. We had just bought a pop-up camper and would stay at either the State Park or another private campground if the park was full. We loved being out under the stars and would invite everyone out for one evening (when it was our turn to cook dinner) for foil-dinners and s’mores over the campfire. After Ken died the children and I camped for a couple years, but finally I decided to stay at the motel as well.
I still have the camper. It has been sitting at a storage facility for more than ten years. I probably missed my chance to sell it for anything. I’ll be lucky to sell it to a salvage company. The hood is cracked, the wheels are flat and I finally had to sell the only vehicle I had that could tow it. (I cried in the dealership when I had to get rid of Ken’s van)
The grandchildren are delighted to have the pool. They have a great time making new memories with the cousins that they only see once a year. It is also nice to have everyone close.
Our Routine
Our week always follows the same pattern. The first day is “settling in day”, usually we pick up some kind of fast food for dinner because we don’t all arrive at the same time and some of us get in pretty late at night. We decide who will be responsible for dinner each night and what time we should all be there to eat. The second day is usually a beach day, but this year it was a pool day because the weather wasn’t that warm.
One day of the week we go into the State Park. I always get a yearly sticker even though I won’t use it any other time. (Losing all my previous stickers was one of the hardest things about giving up the van). The younger people will go down the river, either on tubes or boards and the older people will follow them, stopping along the way to read or just watch the activity on the river. When they reach the beach at the end of the river we pick them up. When my husband was alive, he would also take the kids fishing on the riverbank. We did that a few times afterward, but they kind of lost interest. I think it was more “time with Dad” than fishing that they were interested in.
When we do go to the beach it is pretty much an all-day thing. Describing Lake Michigan to people who have never been there is not easy. They don’t really believe how Great it is. Superior is rocky and Huron and Erie don’t have the same kind of beaches. I’m not really sure about Ontario, but I don’t think it’s as nice as Lake Michigan. It is like the ocean without the ”nasty bits” I have a hoodie that says: Lake Michigan – No Salt, No Sharks, No Worries. That about sums it up. Sometimes there are big waves, sometimes it’s calm. There are huge sandy beaches and the water is usually cold. We all sunbathe, (quite often burn, but not this year) and the children dig tunnels, bury each other and build sand castles…and they ALWAYS go in the water no matter how cold it is.
We have a few people who run each morning or take bike rides. Some of us take side trips to the nearby Casino or a neighboring town to shop. There are also blueberries to pick. Little groups will meet for breakfast or lunch in town, but we all meet at suppertime except for one evening where each family “does its own thing”. This year I took my group to a seafood restaurant, some went to a brewery.
After dinner every night we go down to the beach for the sunset. I have recently been going through a lot of stuff, cleaning my bedroom, and I must have thousands of pictures of Ludington sunsets. Each is unique.
When the last bit of sun has slipped into the water it’s time for ice cream. We all head downtown to the House of Flavors where we each get a cone. Over the years I think we have sampled all of the flavors. This year the new one was Banana Cream Pie. Then it is back to the motel.
The Outlaws
One tradition that we have is playing “Hand & Foot”. For some reason the original Krouse children haven’t developed a love of playing cards, but all of us who have married into the family have. Instead of “in-laws” we call ourselves the “outlaws”. Every night after ice cream we gather in the community room with drinks, snacks and cards. The love of card playing has trickled down to the next generation and we have members as young as thirteen (and as old as seventy-four) playing. This is also where a lot of decisions are made about the next day’s agenda, etc.
Souvenirs
Late in the week we take one day to go shopping for souvenirs. Some of us get a new hoodie or tee-shirt every year. I always buy fudge and candy to take to my parents on our way home.
The last day we all go to the House of Flavors for what we call our “Big Ice Cream”. What that means is that instead of just a cone, we can all order anything we want, including a Pig’s Dinner. It is a rite of passage when a child is able to finish his first Pig’s Dinner. The HOF rewards anyone who eats one with a dated pin. This year my son asked and was allowed to purchase the trough that the Pig’s Dinner is served in.
See You Next Year
The morning we leave is pretty hectic. We have to be out of the motel by eleven, so there isn’t much time for socializing. Some have planes to catch, some have long drives ahead of them.
Before we leave, we always take one last drive by the beach. It’s kind of sad, not knowing if we will all be able to meet again next year. One thing I regret is that the last year my husband was in Ludington, I wasn’t there. My son had qualified for the Junior Olympics in Sacramento, California and I had gone with him. I wouldn’t have missed it, but I wish the timing had been different.
On the way out of town, we all “accidentally” meet at the House of Flavors for one last breakfast. There are hugs and kisses and promises to” keep in touch”. I am truly blessed that, remarkably, we really do.
