On Sunday, we had a mellow, do-as-you-want sort of day. I woke up first, and walked downtown to a bakery to pick up muffins, donuts, and strudel for people to have for breakfast, and then I read out on the porch. People got up and ready at various staggered times, and then Mer and I went to church downtown in Bridgman, to a very small church, Olivet. We have been three or four times, and we like the people. There are only about twenty people in attendance on any given Sunday, but they are very friendly people. The pastor, and older man, gave a sermon on how only God can create a new and clean heart in people, which was a touching sermon given that the pastor had just had heart surgery. We enjoyed the service very much.
After church, we ate some of the various foodstuffs, and then went down to the town beach, Weko Beach. I walked down with Katie first, and found out about her doctoral dissertation, which looked at the effects of the Enlightenment on Christian writing. What I understood sounded interesting. The others joined us a little later, although Zach and Londa sat on a bench overlooking the beach while the four of us wandered in the surf. Londa has had some back problems from a recent car accident, so she wisely avoided walking on sand. The surf was really high from the wind off the lake, and the water was warm. It was grand fun letting the water crash against my knees and feeling the pull of the water. Water has a lot of power in it, and I was surprised at the number of people who were swimming.
We went back to the house, where I took a nap and people puttered as they wished. Mer went with Zach and Londa down to the pool near the house. Ellen had been gracious enough to bring a lasagna and bread dough with her, so she made these Sunday afternoon, and we had a lovely early supper. It was very good. After supper, Ellen, Katie and I went back down to the beach while Londa, Zach and Mer went back to the pool. Mer joined us at the beach after a short time because she wanted to play in the waves. Ellen, Mer and I played in the surf for a time while Katie watched. The surf almost knocked me and Mer over a number of times, and it succeeded in bowling Ellen over in the water, and she was fully dressed (Mer and I had on bathing suits). Ellen laughed the entire time, though – it is hard to be mad on a warm day in the warm water. As we were walking back along the beach, we saw a capsized catamaran that had launched down the beach earlier. It was drifting toward the beach, and we could see two people hanging on to it, and several emergency officers were running up the beach. There was nothing we could do, so we kept walking, but kept seeing more and more emergency vehicles. We heard later there were departments from three townships, but we never found out why – it seemed like a lot of people for one capsized boat with two people on it. I hope everything turned out okay, but I never did hear anything.
After the romp at the beach, we all met up at the house again, and Mer, Ellen, and Londa played a game while Zach graded and I read. Since we wanted to head back to St. Joseph to see the fireworks, we split up into two groups for the drive up there, and we went up early so we could get dessert. We landed on the South Bend Chocolate Factory, which was a universally applauded choice. We got three enormous slices of their chocolate cake to split among the six of us. We got to sit outside, and we took our time, since we had well over an hour until the fireworks display. A band set up inside the chocolate shop, but it was too crowded to go in and listen, which was a shame since the small snatches I did hear were all well done.
We headed down toward the beach for the fireworks. We were aiming for some benches near a fountain, but discovered they were wet from the fountain, as were the small hills nearby. So, we wandered all the way down to the beach and staked out a spot. The sand was cool, bordering on cold, since the sun was down, and the wind was still steady. I had grabbed a coat from Mom’s communal closet, and I was glad that I did. We waited about twenty or thirty minutes for the show to start, and it was an impressive display. The fireworks were right overhead, since they were being launched just a few hundred yards away on the lighthouse pier. They were set to go off pretty high, so the sound did not line up with the visual explosion, but it was still a great show. It started raining just during the finale, so we got fairly wet on the pretty long walk back to the cars. It was still worth it, to see the show.
On Monday, Katie left early before anyone was up – she actually had to teach that day, even though it was Labor Day. Zach, Londa, Mer, and I went for breakfast at Sammy’s, a local restaurant that serves up great breakfasts. This day, for some reason, the service was slow, so by the time I finished eating, I excused myself to walk back home so I could get started on laundry and other clean-up details. Ironically, as I crested the last hill near Mom’s, Zach and company drove by, so I could have just waited.
I got some laundry going, and then the five of us went back down to the beach to look at the waves. They were even higher than the day before, and there was no one in the water. The sand was whipping around, and the whole scene felt wild. After we got back to the house, Ellen packed up and left to get home and grade and such. We finished up laundry, and as such, we did not get on the road until about 1:00. The trip home was not so smooth as the trip out – something I had eaten made me sick, so I had to ask to stop pretty often. The normally five-and-a-half hour trip took more like seven hours to get home. Still, the weekend was certainly worth it, and was a very good break from the routine of school.