The other side of the rocks

 I decided today was the day I banish all remaining Halloween candy and get back on the fitness track.  Since it was a decent day for early November I decided to walk one of my outside routes.  One of the "loops" on my triple loop walk is less appealing to me lately because there is a new house going up on it that I have to walk by twice.  There are always numerous big trucks blocking the road and workers hanging out by their trucks that I have to walk by.  So instead of cutting the walk short I decided to go down to the beach and run the stairs a couple of times.  Believe me, going up and down those stairs twice would out burn any amount of calories that I didn't get on that last quarter mile or so of my loops.

 

When I got to the beach I was amazed at how gorgeous it was down there.  No wind at all, a virtually flat lake and massive amounts of beautiful sand.   I know the water levels are way down this year, but we have not seen levels this low on our beach ever since we have lived here.  I walked down to our "rocks" and noticed right away that you could walk all the way around them without getting into the water.  I remember once when Spencer was a baby the water was pretty low and we walked around them but were still knee deep in water.   This was all sand all the way around.  I knew the kids would get a huge kick out of seeing it like this and since Monday is their early release day, I knew what we were doing after school.

 

Spencer made plans to go to a friend's house, but Evan and Hailey were intrigued and all about the little adventure I told them about.

 

When we got to the end of the rock pile Evan was quick to discover an intake or outflow or maybe both that we had never seen before because it was under water!

As always - he finds something he can't live without.

They were amazed at the amount of beach on the other side of the rocks.  I told Evan we could walk all the way to Grama's house from here.  He thought it would take us a couple of days and was amazed when I told him it would only take an hour or so.

Hailey wondered how it got like this and thought it might be the result of Hurricane Sandy.  Not likely, but at least she is up on her current events.

It was a gorgeous day down at the lake.  We are going to miss days like this when we are buried in snow soon. 

I have no idea what they are doing here, but I absolutely love it.

When we decided to head back over to our side of the rocks we came across a strange site.  A stream of water that had not been there before was cascading through the rocks and making a little channel into the lake. 

It was coming out of the big pipe that Evan had discovered earlier.  I don't know if it only lets water out at certain times or what but it was kind of cool to see.    Hailey who had taken her shoes off to run in the sand was distraught because she realized her shoes were not where she left them.   Of course she had left them right in the middle of the new channel of running water.  It only took a second before we saw one a few yards away lapping at the shore and its partner floating out toward Milwaukee.  I am still utterly amazed that her shoe was floating.  If it was a Croc I could see it, but a tennis shoe?  Someone was looking out for her feet on that afternoon.

After maybe saying a bad word or two, I took off my shoes and socks and yanked up my yoga pants.  Lake Michigan in November is not a comfortable place to be.  By the way, I can't even tell you how happy it made me that my son thought to take a photo of this - not a great photo - but the impetus was there.

We sloshed home and quickly hopped into warm baths and showers.  I hope we have some additional nice days so we can hang out on the rocks again before the snow flies.