Flat rocks
When Mica and Harrison visited and we went to the North Dunes Nature Preserve* we noticed the beach had a ton of smooth, flat rocks (from the tide hitting them up against the barrier along the shore?).
I immediately told my mom about it, because I know she and her mom have a “thing” for flat rocks. So when Mom was out here this weekend to help with the house stuff, I said “It’s too bad we won’t have time for you to go check out all those flat rocks!”
Hold up, that is not what she had in mind! “Let’s just get up early and go before we start work.” Okay, then!
And that is what we did (um, we left about forty-five minutes late though – but we were there and back in fifty minutes!). We drove to the beach (fifteen minutes from my house), found some cool rocks, took some pics,
and then drove back and got right to work! Zoom, zoom, zoom!
It was nice to take a short amount of time to do something fun on Saturday (a bike ride with my dad) and Sunday (finding rocks with mom). I haven’t had much downtime lately. And it sucks when you have people come help you and you don’t even get to catch up with them because you’re working so hard. So yeah – it was a nice treat.
Mom said she plans to leave the rocks in a basket to let the grandkids play with/try to stack because “it is relaxing and fun.” Then after awhile she’ll put them in a jar and label them with the date and location where she got them. She was impressed by Lake Michigan’s size and the sound of the waves!
And I am sure I’ll be taking my mom and her mom out there, if they visit together in the early winter as they sometimes do!
*which I erroneously called Illinois Beach State Park in my blog post – not too big of a deal – they are RIGHT next to each other
Themocracy
I was just thinking “Hmm, I wonder where North Dunes Nature Preserve is.” I had never heard of it!
Was this your mom’s first visit to Lake Michigan? I’m glad you could get away for something fun with all the work this weekend!
Yeah, it’s literally just north of Illinois Beach State Park. You can’t really get from one to the other within the parks, though.
It wasn’t! I think she had just forgotten. We went by Lake Andrea and she asked if that was where all the flat rocks were and I let her know it was at a much, MUCH bigger lake. Ha.
Is it still in Illinois??? I thought IBSP was right at the border!
LOL, just a bit bigger 🙂
It is 🙂 https://goo.gl/maps/Meu9iKgGA3S2
Very cool that you were able to get in this nice down time with your mom while she was visiting. Is this a beach where you can go in the water too?
We did see people going in to the water, but you have to climb over a barrier and down rocks to get to it! There is an actual (more sandy) beach just south of this location that’s a bit better for swimming 🙂 (that is where I was in this pic – http://www.ilaxstudio.com/blog/2016/07/19/less-reality-more-beach/)
I love flat rocks! I tend to gather a little bit of nature when I visit someplace special and display it around my house. I have a couple of tiny pinecones and bits of moss from Pinecrest, and of course some shells, sea glass, and rocks from the California beaches – and it makes me happy to see these items after my visits.
Neat! It would make me happy to see something like that as well 🙂 I have some shells from our trip to Aruba (and sand that I can’t seem to get out of them, ha) that I used to have displayed until we moved.
I love the picture of the flat rocks stacked on each other. Very soothing and Zen. Reminds me of something you’d see in a Japanese tea garden!
I thought it looked really soothing, too!
Nice down time with your mom and beautiful rocks – what more can you want in life? I like the idea of a collection for the grandkids to play with – natural toys!
That was a nice little break! The beach area is beautiful 🙂
I think flat smooth rocks are pretty, I tend to want to keep some too when I see them.
Mom has a nice collection going 🙂
I’m glad your mom got to see the cool rocks. I’d forgotten what I drew on mine…no surprise there! I do think playing with the flat rocks is pretty relaxing; I wonder if your mom will have guests who are as entertained by her collection as we were.