June 14, 2007

We woke up again this morning to the most unbelievable weather for Lake Michigan. It was almost calm so once again we ate breakfast early and took off South toward Chicago. We are in South Haven, MI for the night. That is another 161 mile day and we were here by two o’clock in the afternoon. They are now saying that at most we have one more day of this weather left so we plan to do the same thing again in the morning. Tomorrow will be a short day in that we plan to get within 30-40 miles of Chicago without staying in the downtown marinas that are so costly. Bob and I have both been to Chicago and seen the tourist things there so we will be happy to get off the lake before the weather gets bad. We are tied up to one of those Florida type docks where you are down in a hole and have to look up at the dock. I don’t know when these people will learn that floating docks are the best to have. Today as we came down the east side of Lake Michigan we were close enough into the shore to see the waves breaking gently on the shore below the sand dunes. The area is getting to be more populated now that we are reaching the southern end and getting close to population centers. Some of the homes on the shore have gigantic stairways leading to the shore so they don’t disturb the sand and vegetation on shore. Although I don’t see any other way they could get up and down the dunes. People have a tendency to look like ants when you see them onshore and you are running along about a half mile away but close enough to see the little waves breaking on the shoreline. We saw very little activity because of the heavy haze over the water. We saw a couple of ore boats way off in the haze. But I am not the least bit upset that the water was almost calm with the exception of boat wakes and little wind ripples at times. It could have been its usual self with two to three foot waves or a short chop which would have slowed us down a lot.