Middle of the Mitten

Petoskey Michigan has a lot of older homes with lots of “gingerbread” trim. Here is an example:

After a couple of days there, we traveled south to the “Middle of the Mitten”.  Michigan’s lower peninsula is often called the mitten, due to its shape (like the palm of a right hand mitten).  If local people are asked where they are from, they point at their right palm to show position in relation to Lakes Michigan and Huron.

We were last in this area a little over 5 years ago, when we bought our first RV: a pickup  truck and fifth wheel trailer.

Carol and Jack, the former owners, live near here and we’ve been meaning to get back and see them.  They are the parents of dear friend, Rob (of Rob and KJ-fame).   Here they are, seated in our slightly larger motorhome.

We went out to dinner with them last night and traded stories about their past trips as well as ours.  It was a great time and we so enjoyed our visit with these great folks!

Today was spent doing errands and maintenance.  We found that there is a Tim Horton’s close by in Midland.  Yipee!  We found it after some difficulty (the Android app, TimmyMe didn’t have an accurate map, grrrr!).

This afternoon was spent installing another water pump.  We had installed two of them earlier in the year, in Phoenix (that failed early on) and also in California. The last one failed this week, after 6 months.  Camping World replaced it with a different model and a $50 refund.  Bob got it all installed today and it works great.  There’s always maintenance on your “stuff”!!    

After a day of household errands, we will be rolling again tomorrow – into Canada.  We will use Ontario as a shortcut from Michigan to the Buffalo NY area.  Since we didn’t get the “International” option for cell phones and data, this means we will be off of the digital grid until Monday when we enter New York.