Holland by the Zuider Zee...er, Lake Michigan

We left Mitchell with heavy hearts.  We so enjoyed our time with Jim and Guyanne and their kids that it was hard to leave.  All of us agreed that we need to return before another eight years go by. 

After we heard Jim preach a great sermon on the first century church’s approach to breaking bread together and how they viewed all breaking of bread as a remembrance of Christ’s sacrifice on our behalf, Jim and Guyanne treated us to lunch at Chicago’s pizza parlor.  If you are ever in Mitchell, I recommend this place.

We bid this wonderful family a tearful farewell. It felt strange to be just getting on the road at 2:30 PM.  We drove about 125 miles to Lafayette, IN, home of Purdue University.  This leg of the trip was primarily practical, in the sense that we wanted to get a little closer to Michigan, a place I have wanted to see for years. We spent the night in Lafayette in a quiet but very tired RV park.

In the morning, we set out early and drove to Holland, MI.  We are currently parked in the Holland State Park beach campground.  Michigan is beautiful, as is Indiana, by the way.  I have never seen any of the Great Lakes before, except from an airliner passing over at 35,000 feet. It was exciting and strange to walk down to the beach and find a lake in a place that looks like it should have an ocean.

See the dot by my left ear?

That was this sailboat drifting with no wind in her sails. 

The vast expanse of water looks like an ocean, except there are no breakers, just some little ripples lapping at the shore. We saw a pair of Mallards swim up to the shore and waddle up the beach; something I would not expect in an ocean. Increasing the confusion is that there is a lighthouse in the park. A lighthouse on a lake is not what I usually expect.

Here's the lighthouse.

And closer up.

Now I ask you, does this not look like an ocean beach.

Here's a hotel or some such that sits along the canal between Lake Michigan
and a much smaller lake called Lake Macatawa.

And closer up. 

The bottom line, however, is that the lake and the beach and the park are all beautiful and a great area for camping (OK, for RVing). We have met a number of people in the park. Some of them are Michiganders and others are from other states. It is great to interact with people from all over the country.

Today, we drove into Holland and were impressed with the beautiful homes we saw. We ran across a college campus: Hope College.  It is a very large campus and quite lovely. From there we drove to a little town called Zeeland, which was settled by Dutch immigrants in 1847.  The town takes great pride in keeping the buildings and grounds in pristine condition.

We got the oil changed in the truck and filled up with gas before we returned to the park. The afternoon has involved a stroll on the beach, during which we saw a young man who was flying a kite with 10 square meters of area.  There was not enough wind for him to really show it off, but he did get it into the air.  We also walked the dogs around the park a couple of times.

Here's the kite.

Here's the flyer.

Early in the day, I finalized our reservations for the rest of the week and the Memorial Day weekend, so we don’t have to worry that we will be stuck at Walmart camping in the parking lot. Tomorrow we will drive to Mackinaw City, where we will be able to see both Lake Michigan and Lake Huron, and then on Friday we will round the top of Lake Michigan and start our westward journey home.