Pure Michigan is a tourism ad campaign. I live here, so they don't need to sell it to me, but how often it is that we overlook our own homes when planning trips, as though we must go far to find things that are worthy of exploration and enjoyment. I have often taken our home state for granted. Jon and I have traveled much of our continental country together, and everywhere you look there are things to explore, things to love, the same being true close to home. We have often vacationed in northern lower Michigan, but this trip was about really falling in love with it again, not just calling it home. It was about revisiting old haunts and inviting Calvin to love them with us.
It doesn't take more than a moment relaxing on one of the sandy beaches in the breeze of the big lake, or traipsing through the dunes, or hiking through a woods along a crystal stream, to understand the meaning of the Pure Michigan ad campaign. All that water, the blue sky, the floating clouds, the deep green forests, the rolling farm lands with their road side stands and farmers markets bursting with colors, smells, and flavors. All that white sand molded into the art of the dunes, decorated with bright green beach grass. All that history.
This trip was definitely about falling in love with our home again, and it was an easy affair to rekindle. Tomorrow we return home, to higher temperatures and a traffic congested city in the days of the Art Fair, and really I'm looking forward to that also, because it is home as well.
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