Life On-the-Move

Other than 3 nights with our friends, the Almekinders, we have spent only one night at each of our next 4 stops (2 in northern Michigan, and 2 in the south) until tomorrow when we will move (again) to a 2-night “groupon-priced” RV resort.  We have lots of practice getting rolling and getting stopped for the night but it will be nice to stay put for 2 nights. 

Once again, we have met up with our friends, Dave and Nancy Hilmo.  We knew they were leaving Minneapolis on Sunday and getting to Michigan by way of the UP and Mackinaw Bridge to the lower peninsula.  We followed a bit behind them doing the same basic route:

  

We crossed the bridge on Wednesday morning, but they crossed it on Tuesday.  We both stopped at the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore on the shores of Lake Michigan.  This park has been managed by the National Park Service only since last year.

 For more details about the park, see http://www.nps.gov/slbe/index.htm

We had an opportunity to chat with th Hilmos at the Visitors Center, and at the same time met with another Nomad couple who are also on their way to the Annual Meeting.   

Thursday morning we revised our travel plans and chose to remain along the Lake Michigan shore a little longer.  We found a well-reviewed campground at Little River Casino in Manistee, and arrived there early this afternoon.  The Hilmos had stopped there for lunch and were still in the parking lot so we had another chance to chat.  We are staying overnight and using the pool and fitness center, but they pushed on to boondock at a winery further south of here.  We will see them again next week at the Nomads meeting.

The Time has Come…. We are Rolling Again

Cousin Tim and his wife, Pam, came last weekend for a visit and we spent time at the bonfire with Steve and Deanna while watching this beautiful sunset. 

 

Tuesday, the 15^th, we cleaned the dust and cobwebs from the motorhome, and got ready to load it up again.  Paige’s Mom came for one last visit this year.  Wednesday was “moving day” when we moved all the stuff that had migrated out of the motorhome back to where it belongs, including groceries and clothes.  Thursday we cleaned and closed the cabin, sauna, and garage.  Unless Brett comes up for hunting season or for snowmobiling, it won’t be opened again until springtime. 

 

We left around mid-day for a short trip to Duluth, where we parked at Lakehead Marina near Canal Park.  We stayed for just one night while having a “going away” dinner with Joyce and Steve and Deanna. 

After sanitizing our water system overnight and dumping our gray and black tanks on Friday morning, we left for a weekend stay with our friends, the Almekinders, in Wisconsin.  We haven’t been to their house for 3 years.  So good to spend time with them again!

Saturday was set aside for motorcycling to nearby Tomahawk for Harley’s Fall Color Run. 

 

Our hosts showed us some great backroads on the way home and provided us a great steak dinner, too.  We will host dinner tomorrow (homemade lasagna and fresh-baked bread).

September Already

Looking back, it has been a very pleasant summer: certainly not too hot - mosquitoes, ticks, and biting flies were not bad at all.  We got plenty of rain when we needed it (mostly at night).  The only drawback was a lot of windy days, both on-shore and off-shore.  Looking ahead, we can see and feel that fall is in the air.  We have already had overnight lows below 40F nearby and jackets are used until mid-morning.  It’s getting much quieter up here as more people are bringing in their boats and closing things up for the winter.

We had one last visit from Brett’s girls.  They stayed about 4 days and we enjoyed it all.  Here they are acting goofy while having a picnic at one of the islands (the Riewe Island, they call it) (can you find the “hidden” grandpa?)

 

Bob and Brett finished the last of our projects when they completed the insulation under the cabin floor.  Our feet now stay warmer on cold days.  In order to fill some time, we helped the neighbors stain their deck and did some branch cutting at Steve’s.

 We had some beautiful views of the lake over the summer.  Here’s one when there was fog in the morning.

 

We were lucky to have Mom make many visits up here this summer and even spent some overnight visits.  She also brought a couple of friends from her apartment building for a couple beautiful afternoons up here.

As this post is being created, it is Thursday the 10^th.  We had guests this morning when Tom and Carole, from across the point, came over to help pull the swimming raft and the dock out of the lake and parked for the winter on shore. 

We will have more company later this week when Tim and Pam Howe will be here for the weekend.

Our fall and winter schedule is coming together: we will be going back to Arizona and California for most of the winter, and going by way of Michigan and Indiana.  We’re leaving the cabin on Thursday, Sept. 17^th.  Nomads’ annual meeting will be in Kalamazoo MI, starting in a little over 2 weeks, then we are scheduled to work on 5 projects (at 3 weeks each) before the end of March.  When April comes, we will wander back to MN doing nothing but sightseeing along the way.

    (posted Sunday, but written last Friday)

We are back at the cabin after 2 weeks on the road.  The first week (or almost) was the trip to Winnipeg that was mentioned in the prior posting.  After returning from Canada, we parked the motorhome at the cabin, got a night’s sleep, and left for the Twin Cities, stopping for lunch with Joyce in Duluth on Friday, the 14^th.  Once we got Valentina home, we headed for our home-away-from-home, Brett’s place in Elk River.  With all of the road repair going on, that 34 mile drive took more than an hour.

The next morning, we stopped at Denny and Dianne’s place on the way to Don and Peggy’s wedding near Pemberton that afternoon.  The wedding turned into quite a family reunion with all of Bob’s siblings, plus a few cousins and an aunt and uncle. 

 A good time was had by all.  Congratulations Don, and welcome to the Riewes Peggy!

Then it was back to Brett’s place the same day.  At this point we’ve put on about 850 miles in 3 days.  Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday were filled with appointments and meetings (Drs, Dentists, and advisors, plus Ron’s birthday at Pam's place).  We also spectated at a hockey tournament and one hockey practice.  We didn’t keep track of those miles!  Thursday was another 200 miles or so, back to the cabin, so on Friday we didn’t leave the peninsula.  We just had a walk around the point.

Just thinking about it brought the title to this posting.

Summer came when we were in Canada, and it lasted through the weekend.  Then the showers and cooler air came in.  We ran the fireplace yesterday and the baseboard heaters today, so it is beginning to feel like fall already.  Hopefully we will have a couple more summer-like days before we leave in a month.

Back from an International Vacation

With two of our major summer projects complete, and a good start on the third, it was time to take a break.  Valentina came from Minneapolis late last Thursday. 

We had a quiet Friday and tornado-threatened Saturday before loading up the motorhome and heading north on Sunday.  We were on our way to Winnipeg’s 46^th annual multicultural festival, called Folklorama (not to be confused with their Folk Music Festival).  Paige had been to one about 16 years ago; Bob had not been to one before; and this was Valentina’s first trip to Canada.  With a mid-day start on Sunday we took two days to get to Winnipeg, stopping for the night on the shores of Lake of the Woods at Arnessen’s Rocky Point access.  We had a great site with a wonderful sunset across Buffalo Bay.

We had a quick and easy border crossing Monday morning and stopped at the first of numerous Tim Hortons in Steinbach for mid-morning coffee and donuts.  The festival is a 2 week celebration of ethnic diversity where half of the 43 groups stage their own performances during the first week, and the rest do the same during the second week.  We missed the first week, but visited 4 different pavilions during our stay: the Russians’ and Italians’ on Monday, the Serbs’ on Tuesday, and the Romanians’ on Wednesday. 

All of these were evening presentations, filled with singing and dancing while we sampled their authentic cooking.  During the days, we visited the French district, “the Forks” historic/shopping area, the WAG (Winnipeg Art Gallery) and Winnipeg’s newest tourist attraction, the Canadian Museum for Human Rights. 

We certainly saw a lot in our short visit.

 

Our return to the cabin was a single day of driving on Thursday.  It will be only a short rest, because we have to get Valentina home on Friday, and get to a wedding on Saturday in southern Minnesota.

Not Sitting Still

We have been busy up here in the Northland: the same week our new carpeting was installed, we also got the pickup back from the body shop (they did a great job).  Then we had overnight company for a couple of nights.  Paige’s former co-workers, KJ and Rob, came to spend some of their hard-earned vacation time here with us.  Later we decided to call this time “training for them as how to live like retired folks”.  During their visit, we took a day trip to Ely.  It is not at the end of the world, just the end of the highways in northern Minnesota.  North of here is canoe country.

After their return to the work-a-day world, we added another labor saving device: a powered door opener on our garage/storage building.  Bob has put in many of these in the past but this was the hardest to complete because of some binding in the tracks that had to be adjusted out.

Last weekend summer finally got here to Makinen.  It was so hot and humid (compared to normal) that we actually turned our A/C in the motorhome on for about an hour one evening.  Paige’s mom came for an overnight visit and stayed two nights to enjoy the hot weather.  The forecast was for continuing humidity into Monday, so we took another road trip, this time along Lake Superior’s north shore to Naniboujou Lodge, near Grand Marais, and Grand Portage National Monument near the Canadian border. 

 

Both were historical and quite interesting (especially the dessert at the lodge).  For more details see            http://naniboujou.com/     and

                 http://www.nps.gov/grpo/planyourvisit/basicinfo.htm

The return trip along the shore was cool, where the fog was rolling in, and hot away from the big lake. 

We are planning another touristy trip in early August when we plan to take Valentina to Winnipeg for a few days.

Getting There

Things are happening up here, slowly.  This is being written on Tuesday morning and our new carpeting should be delivered and installed later today.  We have spent weeks slowly cutting out pieces of the old stuff and sanding the subfloor to get it acceptably clean.  Yesterday all furniture was removed and we re-touched some of the early sanding.

It has been quite a bit of work, but should be worth it.

Meanwhile, the auto body shop still has our truck.  They had first tried to repair one of the doors, but later decided to replace it instead.  This means more time will be needed to have the replacement delivered.  We should learn soon when they expect to finish.

While all this has been going on, we have had some visitors.  All of our granddaughters and Dave’s blended family were here for the long 4^th of July weekend, with Brett’s girls spending an extra day before going home on the 6^th.  While they were here, Olivia and Anna participated in the local Cabin Circle Run/Walk with Anna taking First Place in the Youth Runner category.  Our neighbors took Sophie and Anna water skiing for the first time.  Sophie almost got up and Anna got up and took one spin around the lake. 

 

Unfortunately, the weather didn’t allow another attempt over the weekend.  Then there was the epic water balloon flight with our 5 girls and the neighbor’s 25 year old son.  It was a very busy, fun time! 

 

They haven’t been our only visitors: the Hilmos, our Nomads friends, stopped for a one-day visit late last week, and former co-workers and friends KJ and Rob will be here next week.

 

When we arrived here with the motorhome back in May, we endured quite a bit of rain.  The last 2 miles were muddy and sandy, so the Journey looked pretty rough for quite awhile.  It took us 2 days to get it looking good again, with the pollen off the top and the mud off the bottom.

Although Brett’s dog, Stella, has returned home, we have kept up our 2-mile walks around the neighborhood.  It’s a good routine to get into!

On Thursday, Paige’s mom has her 86^th birthday.  Her sister, Pam (who is retiring August 7^th – yippee!), will be in Duluth, so we will be taking Mom out for lunch.  So happy to have these opportunities!

PS (Thursday): Here is the finished flooring: