Lake Erie Thaw.

Edgewater park in the fog.

So Lake Erie is starting to thaw!  It was 45 and sunny today!  Spring might actually be a thing that is possible!  And it's all causing some crazy awesome Great Lakes weather.  Of course I had to take the kids to check it out.

We stopped by Edgewater Park on the way home from school today.  And it was basically an alien landscape. 

The blue skies and sunshine against a crazy thick fog and still iced over lake well... I really wish I had brought my good camera:

Although I probably had too much to manage what with 3 small kids and the dog...

They were super into climbing on the rocks.  Which was all sorts of fun:

Although 2/3 kids have NO FEAR which... yeah it made for a bit of yelling when the girl was determined to climb to the lake. 

Seriously, child.  You are making me nervous.

I don't think she quite realized that Lake Erie was the giant ice cube in front of her.  Once that was clear she wanted to walk on it.  Which, no.  Not with little ones.  Not during a thaw.

Although we did check out the beach.

Kindof.  I realized that sand + melting ice = a terrible plan.  So we drove around to the pier and checked that out instead:

On the way home we stopped off at our city view place taking bets along the way about if we would be able to see the sky line.  It's usually a great view - Lake Erie in the foreground, Cleveland in the background.  I've posted that shot here many times.  I figured it was about a 50/50 chance of seeing the city.  Turns out I was right.  We could see 50% of the city:

 My daughter thought it looked like someone erased the bottom half.  Word:

Yay for spring!

Girls' Weekend at Put-In-Bay.

So!  Last weekend some friends and I hopped on the Miller Boat Line and headed to Put-In-Bay for a much anticipated girls' weekend:

It was Halloween weekend at PIB so there were lots of shenanigans.  That .... we had no interest in, honestly.  Instead our weekend looked more like this:

Relaxing in front of a fire with good wine, good conversation, and noone needing anything from me?  PERFECT.

I wouldn't have thought of Put-in-Bay as the spot for a trip like this.  I know the island is fantastic with families (we took ours there last year and had a ball).  But for an adults only trip?  Mainly I picture bars and  well... shenanigans.  But my friend was certain it would be perfect and she was right.  We stayed at a "cottage" owned by her family.  Her descendants have been vacationing on PIB for 104 years.  Yes.  104.  Completely amazing and interesting.  I was fascinated.  So she took us on a little tour of the west side of the island:

The yellow house was her great-grandparents.  It's down the street from her grandparents' house, her cousin's house, and her parents' house.

It was the perfect day for a walk.  Fall on the lake is so beautiful!

We went out to dinner and ate the best fish fry on the island (it was good but nothing can compare to how my dad does a Lake Erie fish fry.  I'm spoiled on that one.):

We went to the Put-In-Bay Winery and tasted delicious wines with a fantastic view of the harbor and lake:

I liked the "Red Witch" wine in particular.  Interestingly it's a white wine.

It's one of these.

 We shopped the "junk store" aka the Antique Store where all of the proceeds benefit the Lake Erie Islands Historical Society:

And we enjoyed a fantastic Lake Erie Sunset:

 And caught the ferry home on Sunday in time to watch football with our families:

I missed them even if they are Steelers fans.

All in all it was a perfect, relaxing weekend.  We're talking about making it a bi-annual tradition.

Yay PUT-IN-BAY!

Disclosure:  The Miller Boat Line provided me with round-trip tickets to the island.  All opinions and photographs are my own.

A Day at Put-In-Bay with the Miller Boat Line.

So on Sat. we packed up the whole family and headed out to Put-in-Bay.



It was an absolutely perfect day for it.  Beautiful, fall weather.  I know people think of the islands and that whole Sandusky area of Lake Erie as a summer gig but it's beautiful in the fall:

Put-in-Bay is the town on South Bass Island on the western end of Lake Erie.  So to get there you need to take a ferry.  We used the Miller Boat Line and they were great.  They run daily out of Port Clinton - about an hour from our house in Cleveland.

The biggest thrill ever for a 2 year old obsessed with cars and trucks and things that go?  Taking our car on a boat:



Seriously it blew his little mind. CAR ON BOAT! CAR BOAT! BOAT!!!! Pretty awesome.  The ride over is about 20 min so we didn't stay in our car the whole time:

Although I did use the downtime to nurse the baby. In a car.  On a boat.

I have officially nursed this kid everywhere.

Although you don't have to take your car on a boat.  Actually the primary way people get around on the island is golf carts.  Which would have been super fun if not for the baby factor.  I just didn't know how that would work.  Plus we wanted to have our car with us to lug all of our gear - stroller, diaper bag, jammies for the trip home, picnic lunch, etc.  When the kids are older the golf carts will be a blast, though!

Once were were back on land we buckled the kids in and headed straight to the Perry's Cave Family Fun Center.

First on our list was the Butterfly House.

Or BOO-FLY house if you're talking to the 2 year old.  BOO FLY DON'T BOTHER ME!  His fav song.

Because my girl wanted to find an Azure Butterfly like in Fancy Nancy.  I wanted to get a picture of the two big kids where they didn't look like crazy people.  Only one of us accomplished our goal:

Guess which one.

Anyways it was really cool.

Tons of  BOOFLIES:

 And we even go to see to see the cocoons which was a big thrill:

From there it was on to Perry's Cave:

Put-in-Bay just had a huge celebration for the bicentennial of the Battle of Lake Erie and this cave was an important factor.  Apparently Perry's men hid out here waiting for the showdown with the British.  They were able to lay in wait because of the cave's fresh water source. The pool of water is safe to drink b/c the limestone in the cave filters it.  The level of the pool rises and falls with the level of Lake Erie - something I find fascinating.  Anyways with out this cave the battle and therefore the War of 1812 and therefore all of flipping history might have gone very differently:

A very important body of water.

As a former preservationist I love sites like this - that have been tourist attractions for literally over a hundred years.  Because some of the things - actually alot of the things - that early tourists did can be really harmful to the thing they were touring.  So then that becomes part of the history of the site, too.  In this case there were black soot marks from the gas lanterns they used to use.  But my fav part was the remaining parts of an old pipeline that used to run from the freshwater pool to the Liberty Hotel. Yeah someone saw this cool, historically significant cave and thought:  "Sweet.  We'll just go ahead and take that water.  Damage it?  Bah.  Our needs are way more important.  What up."
Kindof like how the southwest looks at our great lakes....  Wait.

Anyways! After the tour the kids needed to run around for a bit.  So we headed to the Fort A-maze-ing.

Which is basically just a huge maze.  The kids loved it.

I got several turns in and had a crying baby in my hands that needed to eat RIGHT NOW OMG.  I... couldn't find the way out.

But with not to much trouble (and alot of mocking) Matt was able to navigate me back to the entrance. 

From there we left the Family Fun Center and headed across the street to Crystal Cave.  Which is the world's largest geode.  My kids LOVE geodes - my mom collects them kindof so they've seen a few in their lives.  Once they understood what they were seeing it blew their minds.

We skipped the winery portion of the Crystal Cave tour, sadly b/c the kids were in dire need of some downtime (read:  AWFUL).  So we took a driving tour of the island:

When everyone seemed back to rights again we had a bit more time to kill before the ferry home but not enough for another attraction.  So we went to the park:

Always a strong play.

And climbed some cannons:

 And got ice cream:

Perfect end to a lovely day.

The ferry home was pretty fun, too!

We had a great time in Put-in-Bay.  Which you can probably tell just by the fact that this turned into about the longest post ever.  And we still didn't see all of the things we wanted to see!  Matt's super bummed about missing the Longest Bar in the World (yes. that's a thing), and I want to go to the top of Perry's Victory.  So we will be returning to the island again soon.

I'd highly recommend a trip if you're looking for something fun and easy to do with your family this fall!

Disclosure:  Miller Boat Line provided me with tickets to the island and the Perry's Cave Family Fun Center attractions.  All opinions are my own.