Summer Snapshots: Exploring Michigan and Beyond
Summer is a special time here in Michigan. Weekend road trips, long days, lake breezes...this is Pure Michigan at its finest. For many of our employees, the season is a chance to enjoy not only the beauty close to home, but also the places farther afield that hold meaning and offer a little bit of adventure.
Each year, we hold the #AdvantageAdventures photo contest: an opportunity for our team to share photos from their summer adventures. It's always fun to see the submissions and hear the stories behind them. Here are two of this year’s winning shots:
Finding a New View on Grosse Ile
Taken by Stephen Oller at Grosse Ile, Michigan
Stephen Oller’s photo captures the reward of following curiosity. One morning, he set out for Grosse Ile, a large island in the Detroit River, simply because he wanted to go somewhere interesting he had never been before. With no fixed plan, he parked, walked around, and soon spotted a scenic overlook.
Then the scene came together: a boat on the water, framed by trees, with the quiet feel of a summer morning. It was the kind of image that makes exploration feel worthwhile — a reminder that even close to home, there are still new corners of Michigan waiting to be discovered.
A Family Favorite on Payette Lake
Taken by Gabriel Rees at Payette Lake in McCall, Idaho
Gabriel Rees’s photo takes us beyond Michigan to Payette Lake in McCall, Idaho, where his family spent two weeks this summer. During the trip, Gabriel’s nuclear family overlapped with both his wife’s parents and his own, creating the kind of reunion that summer vacations are made for. One day, they rented a pontoon and cruised the lake — that's when the photo was captured.
For Gabriel, McCall is more than a destination; it is a family tradition. His maternal grandparents purchased a log cabin on the lake in 1979, and the family has returned most summers ever since, with a couple dozen grandkids and great-grandkids added along the way. The Rees family considers it their “favorite place,” a landscape tied to decades of shared memories.
This summer was especially meaningful because it was the family’s last at the cabin. After Gabriel’s grandfather passed in 2024, his grandmother decided to sell the property while she is still able to manage the decision herself. Gabriel describes the moment as bittersweet, but filled with gratitude for the many years of memories and for the beautiful landscapes of central Idaho — as he put it, “one of the most beautiful parts of the continental USA.”
Where Summer Took Us
From a spontaneous Michigan morning on Grosse Ile to a deeply rooted family gathering on Payette Lake, these photos show how summer can be both adventurous and personal. Whether employees stayed close to home or traveled across the country, the season offered moments worth pausing for — and, luckily for us, moments worth sharing.