Lake Erie Picnic

The weather is really beautiful, the temp is 80 and it's very breezy with low humidity, so the kids and I took a picnic to Lake Erie today. This beach is about 35 minutes away from our house. It's the closest thing I've found here to my beloved beach, although it's still a far cry.

Although there were many people in the water and the kids really wanted to swim, I checked the bacteria levels online before we left and every beach near us is under a swimming advisory. Gross. This is from the bacteria-checking website...

I saw a warning sign at my beach. What does it mean?
The sign means that the level of bacteria in the water is currently higher than the maximum standard that is used for evaluating beaches. If you are already sick, or if your immune system is weakened, your risk of becoming ill is greater if you swim today.

What kinds of illnesses could I get from swimming in contaminated water?
Most swimming-related illnesses are minor. They require little or no treatment and have no long-term health effects. The most common illness associated with swimming in polluted water is gastroenteritis with the following symptoms: nausea, vomiting, headache, stomachache, fever and diarrhea. Other illnesses associated with swimming include eye, ear, nose, and throat infections.

No thanks. So after our picnic, we played on the beach and collected rocks and sea glass.

Kate requested this picture...

Not a bad bounty considering that we weren't there at dawn. The round, silver thing in the middle is very worn so I can't make out anything that on it except a star in the middle and faint traces of letters around the star. Maybe an old button?


I noticed a young man, maybe 16 years old, walking down the beach alone wearing blue jeans and a polo and the familiar iPod earbuds. He stood out because he was alone and not dressed for the beach. Well, about 20 minutes later he said, "Ma'am" and approached me with his hand out like he was giving me something. Normally I am very defensive about strange men approaching/talking to me, but he was young, clean-cut and ???, I don't know why I didn't react the way I normally would. Anyway, I held my hand out for him and he dropped this into it and said, "Jesus wants me to tell you that he loves you."

Then he walked off telling me to have a nice day. I didn't see him again while we were there. I will never know who he was, but that young man warmed my heart.