Beaches in Michigan

Last week we got to spend nearly four days at Traverse City, MI. We rented a 2- bedroom apartment with a full kitchen on Route 31, right on the shore of Lake Michigan. The beach was just a 5-minute drive from the apartment. It is amazing how beautiful and enjoyable Michigan is during the summer months. It felt like Florida in the winter months, but without the palm trees or the salty sea breeze. Every day I got to spend nearly 3-4 hours on the beach, soaking up the sun and when it got quite hot (over 95 deg.F) I plunged into the lake to cool some. In the evenings we cooked some pasta or rice with dal and stir-fried vegetables and had dinner in the apartment. After dinner, we would go for a spin in the car, get ourselves a cone of ice cream each and find a nice place on the beach to enjoy both the sunset (it was well past 9:00 p.m. when the sun dipped into the lake) and the ice cream. I got hooked to a flavor called roasted almond mocha.

But invariably, at the end of the day, I would be tempted to catch up on the news in CNN. The cable channel played endlessly the street protests in Iran and the ruthlessness of the Basij militia. I couldn't explain the urge to watch the depressing scenes on TV, but I did it almost every night. If only the people in Iran could get to watch the sunset over Lake Michigan and enjoy a nice cone of ice cream, perhaps there would be less violence. But then, revolutions are not made from pursuing simple pleasures, are they?