We are back from an epic weeklong vacation in Paradise. In the Paradise in the U.P., that is. It started Saturday the 22nd with the Zimmer picnic...or what we could do of the Zimmer picnic. We thought it would be fun to go to the picnic before heading north, so first thing was to head over to Indiana Beach with a loaded truck. It was a sweltering hot day, but a cloudy one, and as usual a lot of the rides at the park were broken down or closed, so the lines were long. We all did a few rides but mostly waited in line, then the thunderstorms started moving in to the area so everything was shut down because of the possibility of lightning. It didn't look like it was going to clear up any time soon so we cut our losses and ditched the picnic by early afternoon to hit the road. That was a good call, I think. We made it as far as Big Rapids on Saturday, and stayed in a motel there overnight. The following morning we picked up most of our groceries for the week in town, and hit to road again. We made it to the cabins in the late afternoon, and I know it doesn't sound like something you do in the U.P. but as soon as we got there, we hit the beach! The cabins are right in Paradise, right up along the shore of Whitefish Bay, and there is a very nice beach with a stairway leading down a bluff to get to it. The water wasn't excessively cold, and it was a nice day, so the kids did quite a bit of swimming. The bay is pretty shallow there too, so there was little danger. We could go out well over a hundred feet and it was still only waist deep at most, and no currents. We did the falls the next day, then the day after we headed out to the Pictured Rocks and did the boat tour. What a cool thing. The boat tour lasts a few hours and you see a lot. The kids were pretty excited for a boat tour. The next day we headed to a bear rescue preserve, which was...kind of disappointing. It seemed more heavy on the tourist trap stuff and light on the bear conservation. Seemed almost exploitative to us. But we did get a photo with a baby bear, which Missy was pretty excited about. The next couple days we hit Whitefish Point; did the shipwreck museum and the lakeshore there. We walked quite a ways looking for agates but didn't find any. We did get a book about how to hunt for them, but the people at the stores said you have to walk at least a mile west of the point to find any because everyone looks at the point. They have really expanded the museums since Beth and I were there last. I'm not sure you could go up into the lighthouse last time either, but the kids wanted to so we had to come back the next day because it was closed when we were there for some reason. So the kids and I came back the next day, leaving Beth at the cabin. And while we were gone, it stormed at the cabin about as hard as Beth have ever seen, while at the point the weather was fine. It was also fun to watch the ships come around the point and look them up on the maritime tracker. One of them was the Walter J. McCarthy Jr., the ship that was transiting the Soo Locks when Beth and I went through on our honeymoon. Cool that. Yesterday, Saturday, we headed home. But of course we stopped at the Mystery Spot in St. Ignace.