Beautiful Beaches, Sites, and a Baby in Ohio...

Our trip to Marblehead was amazing despite some crazy weather. In the morning I had a photoshoot of an amazing couple Eric and Sami. We met at Bay Point Yacht Club where they keep two boats and stay there a few days a week during the summer. They knew that I was going to make this a mini vacation with my family so they had a three day guest pass for the club and beach for us as well as some toys ready for my daughter to pay on the beach with. My daughter was more than thrilled. The Beach at Bay Point Yacht Club was beautiful and clean. My daughter had a wonderful time playing with the sand and jumping in the water with her daddy. You could even see Cedar Point from the waterbreak. In the picture to the right if you enlarge it you can see some of the rides at Cedar Point in the background. I can only imagine the view on a clear day. The photoshoot took place on the beach, water break, and then down to the Marblehead lighthouse. And with a little luck the weather held up.

The last time Dave and I have been to the Marblehead Lighthouse was during one of our whim explorations when we thought that we found this little hidden treasure since no one was there. This time there were practically tour busses and company picnics going on at the location. Who would had guessed for a Thursday! It made the photoshoot a little more difficult, but I guess it's nothing that a little photoshop work can't fix. But it is quite the site to see all the same. Plus you can't argue since it's free to the public. My daughter looked to have a good time running around. Although this place gives you direct access to the water where there are just rocks and rather large waves. Not a place to let a little one run wild.
We wrapped up the photoshoot and decided to drive along the lake shore to find lunch. The town of Marblehead is really cute. Everyone raves about the little icecream shop out there. Plus there are a ton of art galleries. The area is a pretty popular vacation area where people (especially from Ohio) have small cabins up there that they go to during the weekends. There are a bunch of bed and breakfast places as well as ads all over for "Fishing Cabins"? I am not sure why they do not just say cabins, it makes me almost feel as if those places are not as nice and that they are just trying to set up some expectation management. Who knows. Maybe one day I will look into that since they also seem quite a bit cheaper, and hey, I love fishing!

We kept driving a long the shore up towards the Putt n Bay ferry on Catawba Island (even though on the map it looks more like a penninsula). We contemplated going to Putt n Bay, but with the weather looming the way it was we figured that we would stay on the mainland. We found a place to eat called Rudders Deli and Cafe. It was really cute although the more we were there the more we realized that it must cater to the tourist going up to Put N Bay. They have a gift shop, a market place, as well as a bakery and deli. They do not have a website though and when I looked it up on Yahoo Local, it considers it in Port Clinton. Rudders Gift Shop and Market Yahoo Local . David had the roast beef and I had the ham with spicy mustard. They also had a children's meal with a hotdog (mind you, the hot dog they advertised as "The best hot dog in Chicago!" good to know when you are in OHIO). The food was decent. All three meals with drinks came up to around 16.00. We ended up going back for a dessert each since they also advertised homemade baked goods. I had the brownie and my husband had the apple bar. The brownie was mediocre at best, but that apple bar was delicious! I wanted to steal it from my husband! My daughter could care less about the hotdog but found the giant cookie in the bag and tried to run off with it! It was a nice visit.

We continued along the Lake Erie lakefront. We kept running into whitout rain so we would slow down or stop for a while. We stopped at Lakeview Metro Park in Lorain for a while. Unfortunately the beach was closed. So we just made it a diaper change pit stop and kept moving. We caught up with the rain again and decided to start heading back the way we came. We didn't realize that there was also a storm coming up behind us. The wind blew feircely and we were in whiteout rain again. The thunder and lightening were intense. I thought for sure that our daughter was going to be scared, but there she was clapping her hands and laughing pointing around. We slowed the car down since we couldn't see what was going on and as fast as it came it went away. As we could see again we started to drive back down the road we came from we were shocked. Trees were down, cars under trees, debris everywhere, powerlines down. The emergency crews flying down the roads and people all over the place surveying the damage. We needed to make another pit stop so we waited to get back to the Metro Park. Trees were down there as well and all of the lifeguard stands were blown over. It was crazy to see all of this!