Caseville, Pt. II

(contd.)

The next morning the weather was awesome, which it would be basically the entirety of the weekend, except for Saturday afternoon when we were due for some rain and mid-70s (but we'll get to that later) 

Winnie, standing guard over the Colliers' site.

We're a civilized lot.

If it's one thing this group does well it's grill. Meat at every meal, no exceptions.

Collier made breakfast sandwiches for everyone, and they were glorious.

Courtney, Mees and Miles (and Winnie too) waiting for their breakfast.

Serving the kids.

A little while later, once we had gotten everyone fed and cleaned up, it was time to break out the traditional Bloody Mary bar (you can't camp without it.)

With Bloody Marys in hand, we loaded up Erik's truck with all of our beach crap and drove it over the beach for four hours of awesomeness. This little bridge thing led from the parking lot up to a 'pet-friendly' section of the park's beach that was more or less uninhabited by other people the whole time we were there.

Kris insisted I bring along our canopy to use at the beach this weekend (despite my grumblings), but she ended up being right about it - came in super handy on days like this where it was low-80s and full sun for hours.

See? Just about had the beach to ourselves this weekend, it was awesome.

Miles was all about fishing this weekend, and brought his pole to the beach every time we went.

Collier pumps up their family's inflatable paddle board (which Mees bought after seeing Kris', which is identical but, you know, pink.)

Collier takes a crack at fishing with Miles' pole.

Tossing a football around in the lake (we'd end up doing a lot of this this weekend.)

Ella and Abby

You could spend hours out here - you could walk out hundreds of yards and the water would still be only up to your waist.

Courtney's a big fan of the shade.

The girls both had their Myspace-era point-and-shoot cameras and, as you can imagine, they took plenty of selfies and posed portraits for their socials.

You know, like these. . .

Taking a break from the water for some necessary bronzing.

Breaking out the frisbee.

Winnie, enjoying her dog bed.

Spotted another dachshund out in the wild at one point. There were a couple other people at the beach, all with dogs, but this one was definitely my favorite.

Erik offers up some of his fishing expertise.

We hung my speaker from the canopy so the sound carried farther, which was good for those of us out in the water.

Mees takes a spin out on the paddle board.

Collier's folks came out for a few hours today to visit (they live in Pinconning, so it's relatively closer), and ended up staying through dinner. I guess that's something they do regularly when the Colliers camp out here.

Erik and I. Still in the water.

Abby and Ella went back to the campsite to shower off and stuff, leaving about twenty minutes or so before we did. At some point they had themselves another lil' photo session, by the look of things.

Hauling back the beach crap to Erik's truck, after a long, fruitful day of beachiness.

Collier's leash for Winnie was like 20ft, but whatever.

Heading back down to the beach to grab another load for the truck. We haul a lot of gear in this group.

Back at camp, the Griffins had just rolled in, so we helped Lon Dog back their RV in position.

Kris arrived shortly thereafter, right around the time all of us beach-goers were showering off the sand and Huron water.

Colliers and Griffins were teaming up for this first dinner of ours, which was tacos.

Big Balls and Big E

Wrapping up the cooking process and setting out the spread.

The vultures dig in.

Kris looks thrilled.

We'd eventually be forced to set up canopies over this dining area for Saturday when a couple isolated sprinkles were to roll through our neck of the woods.

Not sure what's up with the deer-in-headlights look I got going on here. . . .

Us dads usually wait until all the women and children make themselves a plate first. You know, 'chivalry' and all that crap.

Sweet baby girl.

The wives took Winnie out for an after-dinner walkabout of the campgrounds for an hour or so, just walking off their Mexican food.

Meanwhile, back at site, us dads got ourselves into some Cornhole (a tribal favorite.)

I exploded one of Erik's bags on one of my throws, so we had to clean it up then break out Colliers' bags instead. Eventually Stefanie was able to sew it back up later in the weekend.

I'm in gangster mode, folks.

Collier gets some rack time after our three-game run (Lonnie and I beat Erik and Collier twice but they squeaked out a win.)

Picked up this tall boy at a party store earlier in the week. It was okay, but a bit rich - I probably wouldn't get it again.

A little while later, we headed back down to the beach to enjoy yet another glorious Great Lakes sunset.

Perfect weather for this.

Aura farming. Yet again.

Hoes on the beach

Stefanie, Kris and Courtney

Slightly edited, but not much - pretty decent sunset this evening.

Checking out weird stuff in the water.

Not sure what Ella's holding up, here. She finds weird stuff all the time.

Just a bunch of random people, standing in the water.

The wives.

Can't tell who this is from this distance, but it's definitely two of ours.

The football get broken out, once again.

Zero chance Abby catches this.

I love it when Kris takes a 0.5 pic of me, makes me look like I weigh 200 lbs.

A rather pensive sunset pic, courtesy of the spouse.

The sun dips behind a cloud bank on its way out for the day.

Front row seats. We once again practically had the beach to ourselves, which was awesome.

Erik, stacking some rocks. Just for funsies.

LJ's friend (forget his name, he ended up staying two nights before his dad came and picked him up Friday afternoon), Myles, and LJ.

The girls get a hold of the ball.

Look how much fun Kris is having. Just look.

That must be some kinda gang sign, not sure what he's doing here.

Walking back across the street to the campground (we neglected to walk down to the pedestrian bridge that directly connects the campground to the beach parking lot, as our sites are right next to the main entrance.)

Collier always gets stuck carrying his family's paddle board. Because dadhood.

Some late night snacking, back at the camp site at the end of the night.

We stayed up a little later tonight than we did the night before, but the sun sucked it out of everyone so folks were still relatively behaved. No run-ins with the park rangers this time around. Stay tuned for tomorrow' installment, folks. . .

- (to be continued. . .)