Traverse City, MI (7-10-11)

We knew when we came to Cherry Festival that we wouldn’t spend the whole week doing Cherry Festival things.  We picked several events we wanted to go to, and planned accordingly.

         We took an Orchard tour on Friday.  The tour starts with a tasting room where they serve all kinds of things made with cherries, including bread, ice cream, salsa, and muffins.  We had fun trying a bunch of stuff before heading to the open air wagon for the orchard tour.  This land was bought by local farmers and is leased to Michigan State University.  The school performs  growing experiments with cherry trees as well as other local crops, like grapes.  There are 80 wineries in the Traverse City area.  They experiment with planting, strains of trees, soil etc. and help the farmers find new strategies for growing crops.

That same day we attended the Cherry Grand  Buffet. Believe me, it sounds much grander than it was.  We’ll try anything once, but we sure won’t be going  back to this “grand” buffet again.  They advertised  a live show as entertainment while we ate, and the show wasn’t too bad for local talent, but our sitting of the buffet was scheduled for an hour and a half.  The show was over in 35 minutes (Paul said he was fine with that!).  The food was just ok, served on paper plates, with only Pepsi or water left to drink by the time we got there.  They also ran out of dessert       ( chocolate chip cookies) long  before we went looking for them.  Oh well. It was a different experience, for sure.

Other days were spent exploring the area.  Carol and Larry came up for a day and we all took off to Leelanau Peninsula, an area that Paul and I have never been to before.  The weather was perfect for a drive!  We stopped at the Grand Traverse Light house, at the tip of Leelanau Peninsula and wandered around the grounds.

    There are several small, interesting villages in this area.  We stopped in Leland, a town on the water, with a unique shopping area, called Fishtown.  It consists of old shanties along the water,  that were rescued from being  bought by a real estate developer, and turned into small  boutiques and restaurants. We started out with drinks and appetizers outside at the Cove Restaurant. The weather was perfect when we got there, but by the time we got our drinks, the sun was gone and the wind had picked up, so we moved inside to have dinner.  

 











Yesterday we put the dinghy in the water on Grand Traverse Bay. I know I go on and on about how beautiful the water is up here, but it really does look like the Caribbean, and  being out there on the dinghy didn’t disappoint.  The weather was perfect for a dinghy day- no wind, and it was hot.  Really hot.  The lake water is not as cold as the ocean back home in MA, but its  still “refreshing”. 







That brings us to today. Today we left Traverse City, regretfully.  I am sure we’ll be back.  We both loved it there and want to spend more time in this area.  At our campground there we met a very friendly family, staying in the rig next to us.  In the course of the conversation, we mentioned that we are getting our new Mobile Suites soon.  They wanted to see what our Alpine looks like inside, so we gave them the tour.  They liked it so much, it looks like they’ll be buying it.  Not from us.  We are trading it in tomorrow.  They have contacted the dealer and it looks like they may have a deal.  It’s a good opportunity for them to get a 2012 5th wheel at a used 5th wheel price.   I hope it works out for them!
So, tomorrow, if all goes well, we’ll have our new home.

The West Coast- of Michigan (7-1-11)

I would say that the west coast of Michigan is the most beautiful part of the state, but in reality, Michigan has a lot of beautiful areas.   The west “coast” is definitely one of them.  We  spent 3 days in Muskegon, a town that is located on the shores of Lake Michigan. 

The RV park we stayed in was one of the “resort” types.  It happened to be very kid/family oriented, which was fine with us, except every time we drove the truck we thought we were going to run one of the critters over with it.  It was entertaining at times, however.

     The new trailer isn’t ready, of course, in fact it apparently needs the paint touched up before they can ship it to MI.  Who knows if that’s the real issue, since we aren’t there to see it, but in any case, the earliest we could get it would be July 11th and even that it is starting to look “iffy”, since the factory is on shut down for the holiday week.  We canceled the delivery  of the recliners and headed out to explore the Muskegon area.  We stopped for Ice cream along the way (bad habit of mine) and attached to the ice cream parlor was a photo gallery with the most awesome pictures of Bald Eagles that I’ve seen.  We talked to the photographer, who also happens to own the ice cream parlor, and found out that the pictures were taken locally and that there are several pairs of nesting Bald Eagles nearby, with eaglets in the nest right now.  We didn’t have time to check it out, but we’ll hopefully have more time next week when we go back to pick up the trailer.
     A friend of mine that I used to work with, Carol, and her husband Larry keep a trailer in the nearby town of Pentwater.  Coincidentally, they are good friends with Al and Debbie- and Paul worked with Al for many years at Ford, so the 6 of us have actually gotten together before.  Al and Debbie keep a trailer right next door to Carol.  Paul and I headed up to Pentwater to visit, and see  the sights with Larry and Carol. 
The town of Pentwater is a really cute, active and interesting town, on the shores of Lake Michigan. Someday we’ll take the dinghy out and around the lakes in the area.

 Our sightseeing trip included a stop at the Ludington Pumped Storage Power Plant.  In the early 1970s a reservoir was built at a higher elevation than nearby Lake Michigan.  There are 6 turbines that connect the reservoir to the lake.  The water is pumped UP to the reservoir at night, when the electricity needed to power the pumps is less expensive.  Then when the demand (and price) for electricity goes up during the day, the water is released through the turbines, generating enough electricity to service 1.3  million customers.

      Back at Carol and Larry’s trailer, we enjoyed dinner and a campfire before heading back home for the night after a great day.
      I mentioned to Paul this morning that I have noticed a big difference between this year and the previous year.  Last year we were focused on seeing places- this year we have spent much more time seeing people.  Not that we haven’t been to interesting places as well, but we’ve been much more social.  From the Escapees rendezvous in January, we met up with friends in New Orleans, spent time with our daughter in IN, then met up with friends in NY before spending time with family and friends in Boston.  From there we saw more friends in NY, and have spent time with friends on both sides of Michigan.   We have another couple of weeks to travel and then we will be in Muncie Indiana for a month, supplying a home to our daughter while she works for a few weeks before heading to Michigan for her wedding.
    On a side note, I am now using Live Writer to compose my blog posts, then uploading the finished product, with pictures already inserted (thanks Elaine!).  Anyone who uses BlogSpot has probably had the same issues inserting pictures into their blogs.  They don’t  always stay where you put them, creating a disjointed look to the page. Live Writer is much easier to use, plus it saves a copy of the post on my computer, saving me the trouble of copying the post into Word.  I have had two issues though.  One, I don’t always remember to use Live Writer, therefore not all of my posts are saved on my computer (and I am too lazy to copy them after the fact) and I still have issues with pictures, just not with posting them.  Usually I save my pictures in an album on Picasa, and post them into the blog from there.  But eventually, I end up deleting excess pictures, or at least moving them to an album titled “unneeded pictures”.  The problem is, if I move pictures that are posted in the blog, I don’t think they can be seen in the blog post anymore.  I am not sure that happens with the pictures I have posted using Live Writer, but maybe in order to resolve the issue I’ll have to sit down and reorganize how I store my pictures.  If any of my blogger friends have a suggestion, I am open to it!

Busy, busy, busy in the desert (01-20-2011)

I'm not exactly sure how we can be so busy when we are parked in the desert, but, busy we are.  I guess, in addition to busy, electricity and battery power for the computer are at a premium, so I haven't really been turning it on much.  Being able to check my email and stocks on my phone also makes it less critical to keep turning the PC on. I'll have a few things to really catch up on, once we get settled in a park again.





    In the meantime, we drove up to Mittry Lake with Carol and hiked around for a few hours.  We only got somewhat lost once or twice- it was one of those days that a GPS would have really come in handy, since the trail wasn't really marked.  At one point we thought we were almost back to the truck, and technically we were, but there was a canal in the way, with no way over it, so we had to walk around it, which added a lot more time to the hike.  We had a great time, but I think we wore Carol out!


end of the road for the bikes.

    We've been trying to stay active, so we took our bikes for a ride into the desert. Well, of course we didn't get too far.  We followed a road until the sand got so deep we couldn't ride anymore, then we explored the sand dunes on foot for a while.  It was noonish, so it got pretty hot after a while. I think it was the hottest day we've had- the thermometer read 110 degrees in the sun. 





    We've had one pot luck dinner, and have gone out to dinner once with the whole group.  So much food.  Wow. I forgot my camera last night so I am hoping someone will give me their pictures (hint, hint).  Most nights we sit around the campfire and chat, and the individuals who sit out change every night, so we've had a chance to chat with most people at length.
   Yesterday we had an outing to some Hot Springs about 30 miles from where we are.  It's on Federal land, and free to the public.  It's in an oasis, with a fence around it to protect young children from falling in.  A group of us hung out there for a while before heading back to camp. 

     I am very anxious now to get my new GPS.  I curse Best Buy for having it backordered for so long.  It would have been great to have on the hike the other day, but we also got our first taste of geo-caching, and I am really looking forward to trying it again, but I need the GPS.  Dave took us out to look for a cache that is close to where we are camped.  Basically with geo-caching, you use the GPS to guide you to a prize, which in this case, was a small case that contained paper and a pencil.  Once we found  it, we wrote our names on the paper and put the cache back where it was.  I didn't take pictures because I was so busy using Dave's GPS to find the cache.  You can go online and create a log of caches that you find, if you want, and if there is a difficult cache to find, you can read the hints as to how to find it.  Once I start doing it, I'll post a blog about it.  It's a really great way to get out and explore an area.  We had a great time finding this one, and I was glad it was relatively easy.
    Every once in a while we are really reminded that we live in a trailer.  Last night was one of those times.  The wind kicked up fierce during the night, and the trailer was rocking.  At 3 AM Paul (my hero) got up and went outside to fold up all the chairs by the campfire so they wouldn't blow away.  When he came back, we pulled 2 of the slides in, to keep the noise level down and the rocking to a minimum.  We finally got some sleep at about 3:30 AM.
 Some of the people who were here have left, and others are leaving tomorrow, including us.  We are headed up to Quartzite for a few days before taking off for Tucson.  
   I am sure I am leaving out lots of information and it sure doesn't sound like a busy week, but it has been!