Into the East

Wednesday morning we crossed the line into the Eastern time zone.  For a couple of long-time Midwesterners, this one is hardest to adjust to.  Prime time shows and nightly news are on 1 hour later – being old now we have a hard time staying up.  Paige tries to stay on Central Time to cope with this. 

We have been in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula many times before, usually on long distance motorcycle trips.  Traveling in our RV (complete with our own kitchen and bathroom) makes it easy to pull off the highway for lunch, and a walk on the rocky beach.  This is the view of Lake Michigan at Manistique:

We also had the fun(?) of crossing the Makinac Bridge while they had small craft warnings on the lake below and reduced speeds for high profile vehicles, along with 4 runners who were blocking one of the two lanes going across.

We thought of Nick Russell (the publisher of “Gyspy Journal”) and his fun with high bridges all the way across.  Also, there was maintenance happening with large equipment on the bridge.  Being from Minneapolis and experiencing the 35W bridge collapse, Paige broke out in a cold sweat!

On previous trips we rushed through a lot of the country; now we can slow down to experience more of it.  We are parked for a couple of days in Petoskey MI.  Last evening we took a drive through town and also down the shoreline to Charlevoix.  Along the way, we saw the Golf Club, Equestrian Resort, Yacht Club and MotorCoach Resort.  This is a “high-end” vacation strip, not our normal neighborhood.  We parked at the low-end KOA and are just fine!

Small World

Four Hundred and ten days ago, and over 2500 miles from here we ran into a couple from Wisconsin (Cheryl and Butch) who were traveling up the Alaska Highway to do some fishing.  We were returning to the lower 48 after seeing Alaska and visiting relatives there.  We were standing in the campground talking about what to see and where to go and ended up swapping some groceries: we gave them some salmon and they gave us some smoked meats from Nueskes in Wittenburg Wisconsin where Cheryl worked.  All year long we’ve been telling people that these were the BEST HOT DOGS EVER.

On Monday morning we detoured on our way to Michigan to stop at Nueskes company store to stock up on some more.  We asked if they knew which employee might have been on a fishing trip to Alaska last summer (being old, we didn’t remember her name), and it was Cheryl behind the counter waiting on us.  Is this a Small World, or what?  The store manager said it was unusual to catch her behind the counter since she and Butch take lots of fishing trips.  We had a great visit with her and gave her one more jar of salmon as she told us she’s been hoarding that original jar we gave her.  Now she’ll have a spare.

We ended the day just across the state line into Michigan and have been planning our next few days.  We will catch up on some housekeeping here, and slowly (for a change) see both the Upper and Lower Peninsulas before crossing into Canada at Sarnia next weekend.

 

Fall is Here

After getting a new rear tire on a slightly rainy Saturday, Sunday turned out to be a great day for a motorcycle ride through northern Wisconsin’s colors.  The state’s website shows this area to be at about 30% of peak color.  Here we are at Timm’s Hill, the highest point in Wisconsin.

 

We hadn’t seen our good friends the Almekinders for about 2 years, so we really enjoyed this time together to catch up.  In addition to the motorcycle ride, we spent time visiting, eating, and checking out a couple of Bob’s job sites (he builds beautiful homes) and his hot GTO.

Today we’re heading east and will stop at Nueske’s near Green Bay.  They make GREAT bacon, and many other smoked meats!

Go Vikings!

Rolling Again

As mentioned in our last blog, we are back on the road once again.

We ended the summer on Labor Day weekend with a visit from David and Valentina to the cabin.  Mom also came up to spend a couple afternoons with us.  Steve, Deanna, and Ryan brought their new toy up to their cabin – a new SeaDoo.  Steve pulled Valentina and Ryan on the tube behind the SeaDoo and put on several hours.  They thoroughly enjoyed it and the weather was great!

 Labor Day is past, the days are getting shorter, the trees are turning colors:

 The birds are making ready to migrate, and so are we. 

After a quick stop in Duluth Thursday morning, and lunch at the Anchor Bar and Grill (a “D, D, & D-spot”) with Mom in Superior, we began our trip east across northern Wisconsin to a campground near our friends, the Almekinders.  We have traveled a lot with them on motorcycle trips during our working lives, but haven’t seen them in person for nearly 2 years.  We plan to catch up a lot in conversations, and get a good bit of motorcycling done this weekend. 

After spending so much time in one place, we have to re-learn our traveling routines.

Can You Hear Us Now?

We feel the need to explain our lack of posting lately.  Our link to the Internet is usually through Verizon.  Verizon’s coverage in Duluth is fine, as it is in the Iron Range of northern Minnesota.  Our cabin on the Whiteface Reservoir is halfway between these areas, about 15 miles from one cell tower and 20 miles from another, so Verizon is practically non-existent there.  We keep another cell phone with ATT for phone calls but that doesn’t work for blogging and internet activities.  We put up this limited connectivity because of views like this

We have kept busy, however.  Through the middle of August, we had 3 granddaughters with us for a week.  Paige had scheduled a couple of activities in Duluth, but the girls really enjoyed just hanging out in the lake and picnicking.

We have been slipping into Duluth once in awhile to help Paige’s mother and her return to normal activities at her house.  There we can get on-line to check emails, do banking, and usual 21^st century stuff, but then we go back off-line at the lake.  As we resume our travels soon, we will return to posting messages here on the blog more often.

Here is a rough schedule for the rest of our year:

-         early this week in Twin Cities for Dr/Dentist/family/MN State Fair activities
-         remainder of the week and Labor Day weekend will be back to the lake
-         after Labor Day we will have a week in Wisconsin with friends
-         2 slow weeks traveling across UP and Lower peninsulas of Michigan
-         a week with the Nomads at the Annual Meeting
-         4 weeks of wandering NY, PA, WVa
-         3 weeks working a project in eastern TN
-         a week for traveling (coastal SC and GA) into eastern Florida (Thanksgiving)
-         another 3 week project, leading a small group at a church near the coast
-         2 weeks off before the end of the year

Our holiday plans are up in the air right now but we will have lots of time to define them.

Until we get back on the road, think of us soaking up the views like the photo above.

Taking Time to Catch Up

After our project at Camp Kingswood finished, about 10 days ago, we retuned to the cabin on Whiteface Reservoir to complete some personal projects with the wood trim on the porch and the millwork around last year’s new windows.  We mentioned some other cleanup we knew was needed after a wind storm that blew through when we were gone.  We only lost one complete tree and numerous branches, but nothing fell where any damage was done.  At the end of the penninsula and on the western side, it was a different story.  Many trees were down and blocking the road right after the storm.  The road was soon cleared so our neighbors could get in and out once again.  There is one area on the western side where the land has been in trust and managed by the state DNR.  They felt that the big winds and resulting blowdown meant that now was the time to harvest some of this timber.  Here is what the area looks like now:

We also got caught up with our neighbors to the south.  The cabin next door has been in the same family for over 50 years, and 5 siblings, their spouses, and children share in its maintenance and use.  One of the daughters, Nancy, and her husband, Russ, usually come up here this time of year, and last week was their week.  It’s always fun to catch up with them on what’s going on.

Bob’s family had a quick get-together on Sunday; all of his siblings and cousins, 14 of the 16 anyway, plus 2 Aunts and one Uncle, and a few of the next 2 generations as well.  Quite a turnout.  Thanks to Marion and Deb for planning and scheduling this gathering.  It was all too short, and infrequent.  We will have to do it again sometime.

Time’s Up

Our third week at Camp Kingswood has been completed and our group has scattered, to meet again sometime/someplace.  Becky returned to Iowa earlier this week, Kitty and John left Friday to see family in Illinois for awhile (after doing their 60^th project!), we left for the cabin Saturday morning, Cindy was planning to leave for Pennsylvania later in the day, while Dan and Joy have a service appointment for Monday so they are staying for the weekend (enjoying the lake and the quiet).  One of the bright spots of doing Nomads projects is meeting many new people and this project, again, succeeded.  We had worked with John and Kitty in Buckeye, AZ last January, but the others were all new to us.

Our social activities this past week included a lunch cruise of Lake Minnetonka, a group dinner at Pizza Ranch, and an evening of theater at “Church Basement Ladies”. Thursday afternoon our Nomads group left the camp to join a group from the local church to put in a shift at Feed My Starving Children. We packed almost 2,000 meals that afternoon.

Brett and Jen have their 12th anniversary this weekend, so we brought their girls home with us for an overnighter on Friday night. David and Valentina came out to have dinner with us as well. The girls enjoyed swimming in the lake. We had a barbecue supper and a campfire. 

We brought the girls home Saturday afternoon (after a stop at Home Depot to make small bulletin boards), and returned to the cabin north of Duluth. 

We have a lot of storm cleanup and lawn mowing to do, as well as finishing some trim that we had started a month ago.