Boating fun on Silver Lake

On Wednesday, we packed up and drove north from Shipshewana to one of the boys’ favorite camping locations.  We were only on the road a few minutes when we arrived back in our home state . . .

After an uneventful drive of 180 miles, we pulled into the Silver Creek RV Resort in Silver Lake, MI and got settled in site #25, a nice wide concrete pull-thru . . . Tom loves these kind of sites!

We enjoyed the uncrowded pool and hot tub, and then sat back in our recliners and waited for the Labor Day weekend madness to begin!

We were meeting our camping friends for the weekend, and they arrived late on Thursday . . . we kept the light on for them . . .

It was tempting to stay up late getting caught up, but we had a boat rented for Friday morning, so we all needed to get some sleep!

Everyone was up and ready to go in the morning, and it looked like it was going to be a beautiful day.  We got set up on the boat and took a cruise around the lake. 

We saw cottages,

the State Park,

and the sand dunes.

We stopped at the dunes so the kids could climb up and see if there was anybody driving in the ORV area,

and after securing the boat (or so we thought!),

the adults followed at a slower pace.

The view at the top was beautiful,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

but soon we began hearing shouts from the water . . . our anchor had dislodged and our boat was floating out into the lake!

Paul raced down the dune,

and got a ride out to the boat from the people who had called to us.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They got him to the boat and he brought it back to shore, where we did a little better job of securing it on shore.

 

The kids weren’t even aware that anything had happened to the boat when they got back down the hill!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They were hot after their climb up the dunes, so they cooled off in the lake,

but Jensen was ready to go tubing.

So, we hooked up the tube to the boat and made our way out to the middle of the lake.  They tried tubing double at first,

but that wasn’t going to work, so they each went separately.

Even without much traffic on the lake, it was pretty choppy and they were all getting bounced around quite a bit!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tom and Paul tried everything they could to knock each of them off the tube, but the kids were hanging on with all they had in them!

Poor Hannah was getting a face full of water!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nicolas challenged Paul to try to get him to fall . . .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He did eventually fall off the tube, but only because he was getting tired and let go!

 

 

 

He was pretty happy!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back on the boat, the boys compared notes on their rides . . .

All that action made the kids hungry, so we headed back to the sand dunes to have a picnic lunch.  Lunch was good, but with the wind, everything had a coating of sand on it . . . including us!  We all needed a swim afterwards to rinse off the sand!

After lunch, the kids did some more tubing and we dropped Tari off at the dock so she could go get their dog and bring him back to the state park for a swim.

Tom took his turn at the wheel, and even though he forced the kids out of the wake more often, he still didn’t manage to knock anybody off the tube!

They all had a great ride, though!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After all the kids had a turn, we met Tari at the state park and all went for a swim.

We all enjoyed the water until it was time to return the boat to the marina.  It was a great day on the water, and a wonderful day with good friends!