Vacation!

We are back from vacation, and what a wonderful vacation it was! We had decided to explore someplace we had never been this year, and after much searching the internet, decided on Michigan. Yes, Michigan. I spent some time on the internet and found some general ideas of what there was to see/do and what general regions my family would enjoy. We started out driving to Milwaukee and spending Mon just bumming around there. We decided to tour the Miller Brewing Company. It was fun and very interesting. The kids and I like to watch the shows such as "How It Works", so this was a glorified version of that.



Rich liked seeing these going past, he is a fan of Miller Lite




These are all cases of beer, waiting to be shipped out, which will happen every 24-36 hrs. That's a lot of beer!


At the end of the tour, we all got free samples. Rich and I had a couple of glasses of beer and the kids got pop. It's Miller time!

We also played at a beach for a bit, the kids had fun chasing birds and looking for rocks and seaglass.






Then it was time for our ferry ride. We went on the Lake Express, a high speed car ferry that runs from Milwaukee to Muskegon, MI in 2 1/2 hrs, across Lake Michigan. This was the largest boat that the kids and I had ever been on, they were quite impressed with the size of the boat and the wake as we moved at 40 mph across the lake.






The next morning, we started to explore Muskegon. Our first stop was the SS Silversides, a US Nuclear submarine museum and a US Coast Guard Cutter that also had been turned into a museum. It was interesting to see what life was like onboard both vessels, we couldn't imagine living on the sub, sometimes not seeing sunlight for up to 3 months at a time.


This is one of the bunk rooms...nothing like sleeping next to the torpedoes, right?


Becca had to try out the "head", or bathroom. It was a little room, filled with levers of all sorts. We read that there was a detailed 12 step process to flush the toilet, forget a step and experience disasterous results.


I found it hard to believe that a kitchen this little could serve up enough food for up to 80 men, 3 meals a day, 7 days a week. It looked small even with Joey in it.


"Order up!"


Andrew enjoyed climbing through all the port doors, he easily fit.

Rich, not so much

More pictures coming, stay tuned...