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!

The U.P.( 8/27/10)

the  view from our campsite

The first few days of our U.P. adventure were spent in St. Ignace, on Lake Michigan. That's pronounced Ig-niss, not Ig-nayss or Ig-nah-see. I also learned that for some reason the word Pastie is pronounced Pass-tee, and its not a pastry, nor a pastie. Its basically an individual meat pot pie.Paul and I tried one on the way home the other day and ended up not eating dinner because it was pretty filling. Also tasty. In keeping with our idea of slowing down a bit, we just spent two days hanging out- fixing things around the place (Paul always has ideas on improvements that can be made), and watching the water.

Our campsite has a great view of lake Michigan and I never tire of looking at beautiful water. Every night its been another beautiful sunset. 

We extended our stay in St. Ignace by one day because on Saturday there was a Chippewa Pow Wow scheduled and the public was invited.  I've never been to a Pow Wow, so I thought it would be interesting.  The field was set up with a center circle for dancers surrounded by the audience (should have brought chairs). The day  started with the Grand Entrance, and several flags were carried around the inner circle.  Once that was done, they began the dancing. A different "tribe" beat their drum for each dance and the indians sang as they danced around in the circle.  One dance was to honor Veterans and all veterans were invited to dance in the circle.  There were vendors all around but nothing we felt like we had to have.

Chippewa Pow Wow

    In addition to adding a night, we have decided to come back to St. Ignace for Labor Day weekend.  Once a year, on Labor Day, they close half of the Mackinac bridge to vehicle traffic and open it up to pedestrians. It's 5 miles long  and anyone can walk the length of it as long as they start walking by 11 am.  Once we get to the other side, buses will transport us back to St. Ignace. 

   In the meantime, we are in Munising Michigan, and today the view from our window is of Lake Superior, which is almost as beautiful as Lake Michigan.  We went swimming in the lake this afternoon since the weather here is in the mid to high 80s and perfect.

Mackinac Bridge

Holland, MI

Well, Paul says now he feels homeless. There was no way Keystone could finish everything that had to be done to the trailer by Friday afternoon, so we left Indiana without it.  We had about 5 minutes to run in and grab what we thought we would need for the next few days.  Keystone will pay for our hotel until we get the trailer back, but Paul and I are already sick of eating out  all the time, and having to deal with the cat in a hotel room. The days we change hotels are even worse, since we can't leave him in the truck unless we leave it running- so the other day we just ate Subway sandwiches in the truck.

Friday we drove up to Holland Michigan, which is on Lake Michigan.  I have been missing the caribbean, since we haven't been in a while, and Lake Michigan has beautiful water.  In fact, Michigan has the most beautiful lakes I have ever seen.  The town of Holland has been an awesome surprise!  If we could move the town about 4 hours south, it would be perfect for us to live in.  There is a very active downtown, complete with cobblestone sidewalks and sidewalk sales.  There are concerts most weekends, and restaurants with outdoor seating.

 We walked around town this morning, checking out the sales and the town parks.  They have quite a few walking trails in the area, and there is a beautiful park in the center of town.  The streets are lined with flowers, and in some cases, sculptures.  The historic district has older, well maintained homes, and its obvious that the town is thriving.

     This afternoon we spent a few hours at Tunnel Park, a beach on Lake Michigan.  The weather was perfect for hanging out at the beach for a while and it satisfied my craving for the ocean, at least for a little while.