Anderson Island

We've lived here for 3 years now. We've been on many ferries and been to many islands in the area. Yet, we've never been to the island that we can see on our drive to church and we've never been on the ferry we pass several times a week.

Until, today.

We never quite knew what was on Anderson Island. We knew it wasn't much. A general store. Trails. A restaurant. Some lakes. Lots of vacation homes. Nothing too exciting. Lately I've been pushing that we take a trip over ourselves to see what it was all about. Today was about our last weekend day before Joe's schedule gets ugly, so today we saw for ourselves.

We packed a lunch and packed up a bag of swimsuits and towels. We caught the afternoon ferry. Clouds were still threatening rain, but we had high hopes that they would burn off like they had the last several days.

I had done a little research before we left, so after we got off the ferry we headed to a Marine Park with a trail leading to a Bay. The trail was such fun. Hiking with a three year old is hilarious. Gabs was so funny the whole time talking about "we can't go under it, we can't go over it, I guess we got to go through it." She said she was hoping that there wouldn't be any monsters on the "height" (aka hike). She lead us the entire way and kept up a good pace. There was a neat little part in the trail where cut tree stumps lined the path for the girls to walk across. They looked like lily pads. Except they were in a forest and on dirt. There must have been twenty-five of them in a row. It was the girls favorite part.

By the time we made it out to the Bay, the sun was peeking through and we could see that our day was going to be just what we had hoped. We combed the shore all alone for awhile and found that it was speckled with sand dollars. We had a handful in a hurry and couldn't carry all that we saw. I've been so sad that I had yet to be at a beach at low tide to find my own sand dollars, so this felt like the jackpot.

We decided that we should jump back in the car and head over to the lakes that we had heard about. We couldn't believe what we saw when we got there. The lake was deserted. And it was gorgeous! There were two little sand areas side by side. One side had a huge platform with a big slide going into the water. And the other side had a little platform dock with a bity slide. Perfect for our girls. The water was crystal blue. And I was envious of the million dollar looking homes I could see across the water.

Both of the girls went straight for the water. No hesitation. Even when they touched the frigid temperatures, they didn't care. It was so much fun watching them slide again and again. We felt like millionaires. Like we owned the lake and the beautiful homes sitting along the water. We were all alone in our own little world and it felt pretty good being millionaires.

We could have stayed for hours longer, but the girls were literally shaking. Gwen could barely stand anymore her legs were so wobbly. They both cried when we wrapped them up and put them in the car. We promised we would go back.

Joe and I couldn't believe how wonderful this place was. We can not wait to go back. We came right home and got on the Internet and discovered that you don't even have to be a millionaire to own those homes we saw. We thought about how nice it would be to have a home in such a quiet, secluded place. Maybe one day. But for now, we'll just hop on our nearest ferry every now and again and go feel like millionaires for the day. It really was that much fun!