Tawas Point

The beach was pretty much deserted by the time we got there, around noon.

Welcome back, Internet.

It's a played out idiom, I'll cede that for sure, but the age-old 'Happy Wife, Happy Life' thing is, well, pretty spot-on. 

Nagatha Christie has been repeatedly bringing up how much she wants to go spend a day at a beach somewhere for, like, weeks now. She's been wanting to either hit up Caseville again, or else some other place along Lake Huron, like Tawas or Alpena. Unfortunately for her, most of the days she's had off of work having been rainy or else too cold for the beach , so up until today we haven't really had the opportunity to go anywhere.

Well, the stars finally aligned, and today we had zero rain in the forecast and weather hovering in the mid/high-70's - about as good as she was gonna get on a day off. We settled on Tawas for a day trip at the beach because it was only like an hour and twenty minutes away - similar to Caseville - and we had never been out that way before. The drive went by much faster than we had anticipated, and upon arrival the weather was still in the lower 70s, which thinned out the crowds so much that we more or less had our pick of location on the beach.

All in all, we spent about five hours on the beach, and an additional hour or so in downtown Tawas, popping into a couple shops and getting the womenfolk ice cream. Pretty solid day trip, all said and done, and Kris felt a hell of a lot better knocking that off her Summer '24 Bucket List.

As they say, Happy Wife, Happy Life.

Check it out. . .

Lake Huron.

Despite my protests, Kris insisted on bringing along this piece-of-shit, half-broke, beach umbrella that we've owned since Alayna was a baby. Kris has never let me throw it away - and I've tried, folks, multiple times - even though this thing barely works under zero-wind conditions.

Well, today was the day it FINALLY died - the slight breeze was too much for it and the thing did that thing umbrellas do where they're blown inside out and the framing breaks. Rest assured, she got a well-deserved 'I Told You So' for her troubles. . .

Yours Truly intended on knocking out a huge chunk out of the first installment of my favorite books of all-time: The Lord of the Rings. I was barely into the second or third chapter of The Fellowship of the Ring when I started reading this afternoon, but would eventually knock out an additional 100 or so pages.

Alayna zoomed in on a couple boats that sailed past while were setting up on the beach. . .

(This one looks like some kinda WWII destroyer.)

Kris gets in a scenic foot pic for her fellow moms.

The girls, chasing seagulls about the beach.

Like Hitchcock's Birds. . .

There was some kinda weird sinkhole in the water a little adjacent to our location on the beach, and they had warning signs all around it warning swimmers.

Alayna would end up taking multiple 'glamour' pics of Abby throughout the afternoon.

I got about five hours of bronzing - and Hobbitry - in today, so I was pretty satisfied.

The girls stumbled across this seagull which only had one leg/foot. . . which has gotta be pretty rare.

And it's not like there were a ton of folks out picnicking, either - there weren't all that many people out to begin with. Even though we had brought snacks with us, the birds left us alone for the most part. Maybe it was some kind of meeting or something, I don't know.

Bored with sitting in the sun, the girls wandered off a little ways down the beach to get some more Abby 'modeling' pics in (for social media or something, I assume.)

A few on some rocks. . .

This one of her acting like a sea monster should go on her 'Gram, for sure.

Alayna decided to bronze alongside her old man after awhile, so while we were preoccupied with getting ourselves gorgeous, Kris took Abby along with her to check out nearby Tawas Point Lighthouse. . .

I don't get the female obsession with selfies. . .

. . . like, if guys want to get a picture of something we just take a picture of it, whereas women have to take a picture of themselves in front of what they want to take a picture of.

Abby was wanting to check out the sinkhole in the water, so Kris followed her out there to document the sudden drop off.

I combined Kris' pics into one image for your viewing convenience, folks.

The Cannonball, getting some sun.

After five or so hours on the beach, we were all pretty funned-out with the sun and decided to head into downtown Tawas to hit up some local, touristy shops and grab some ice cream for the girls.

We ultimately popped into a few stores, as Abby was after a tie-dyed Tawas shirt, but unfortunately she never found one (only hoodies.) I managed to pick up another metal bar sign for my basement bar, though. Hooray for me.

Kris wanted to hit up this local ice cream place, instead of a chain ice cream joint like Dairy Queen (which was more convenient for us - we had to drive back a few blocks in order to get to this place.)

This inside of this ice creamery (is that a word?) was all retro-fitted to look like a 50s/60s diner, which was pretty awesome.

An old timey, wooden jukebox with era-appropriate music. I would love to own something like this and swap it out with punk rock songs. . .

I held a table for us while Kris and the girls were in line buying their ice cream (the place was starting to get packed with fellow tourists who had the same idea as us.) We enjoyed a last little bit of sun at the ice cream joint before heading back to Midland, another successful day trip in the books.

- Brian