Sturgeon Point Light House (Michigan)

What is it about a lighthouse that is so alluring? Why do people drive miles and miles to visit lighthouses? Is it to seek higher ground? To catch that awesome Birdseye view from the top of the steep and narrow staircase? Some lighthouses are said to be haunted, and there are tours offered to delve into just that aspect of these ancient stone watchtowers. Michigan is bordered by 4 of the 5 Great Lakes, giving it 3,288 miles of shoreline, and lots of lighthouses. There were as many as 247 operating lighthouses in Michigan at one time, but now less than 100 are in good condition. On one sunny day in August, Dan and I decided to take a drive to the Sturgeon Point Light Station, a lighthouse on Lake Huron in Haynes Township in northeastern Lower Michigan. Built in 1869, and established to ward mariners off a reef that extends 1.5 miles lakeward from Sturgeon Point, it is today regarded as a historic example of a Cape Cod style Great Lakes lighthouse.

Soo Locks, Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan

In mid-July Dan's brother and his wife stopped in Hillman for a brief visit with us during a cross country trip of their own. Although Dan and I have been to Sault Ste. Marie (pronounced "Sue" Saint Marie) on a couple of occasions, Larry and Mary Ann had not, and we decided to take a day and drive the 150 miles to this border town between the US and Canada. Of great interest in this small town are the Soo Locks, a set of parallel locks which enable ships to travel between Lake Superior and the lower Great Lakes.

The locks are located on the St. Mary's River between Lake Superior and Lake Huron, between the Upper Peninsula of the state of Michigan and Canadian province of Ontario. They bypass the rapids of the river, where the water falls 21 feet. The locks pass an average of 10,000 ships per year, despite being closed during the winter from January through March, when ice shuts down shipping on the Great Lakes. The winter closure period is used to inspect and maintain the locks. The locks share a name (usually shortened and anglicized as Soo) with the two cities named Sault Ste. Marie in Ontario and Michigan, located on either side of the St. Mary's river. The Sault Ste.Marie InternationalBridge between the United States and Canada permits vehicular traffic to pass over the locks.

  

Michigan Festivals 2012

After recovering from our terrible, no-good, very bad day (And Then The Wheels Came Off), we finally arrived safe and sound in Hillman, Michigan at the end of May. Our first stay at the Thunder Bay Golf & RV Resort was in the summer of 2009, and I posted an entry on this blog back then ( Hillman). Besides enjoying the golf while we are here, Dan and I also like to attend the many festivals in the area. While staying here this year (2012), we had much fun attending the Traverse City Cherry Festival, the Atlanta Blue Grass in The Park Festival, The Harmony Crafts Fair in Harrisville, and the Posen Potato Festival. It is so enjoyable going to local festivals and having the opportunity to capture a little local flavor. Below is a brief description of each event, along with a couple of pictures of each.

Traverse City Cherry Festival: The National Cherry Festival is a festival in Traverse City, Michigan. The Original National Cherry Festival began in 1925 as the Blessing of the Blossoms Festival. This Festival was originally an event held in early May to attract tourists to Northern Michigan to view the booming cherry blossoms. Every year more than 500,000 attendees enjoy the National Cherry Festival, which is now in its 86th year. Families can enjoy many kinds of activities from cherry pit spitting and pie eating contests, to the Grand Royale Parade in which the newly crowned Cherry Queen greets the crowds. There is also a Junior Royale parade for children and a Festival Air Show, including periodic visits from the Blue Angels.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Atlanta, Michigan Bluegrass in The Park: A small gathering held over two days of bluegrass music in the local park. No admission is charged, but donations gladly accepted. Fun in the sun!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Harmony Crafts Fair in Harrisville, Michigan:  Each Labor Day weekend there is a regional craft show, parade, and national jamboree often referred to Harmony Weekend. Hundreds of exhibitors display their product to over one hundred thousand visitors. We didn’t come home empty handed!

 

Posen Potato Festival, Posen, Michigan: The Posen Potato Festival is a food festival held annually in Posen, a village in Presque Isle County of the U.S. state of Michigan. The Posen Potato Festival has been an annual event for over 50 years. Posen has a strong Polish background, so the Posen Potato Festival not only features potato as its central theme, but also concentrates of authentic Polish traditions, including traditional dresses, polka dancing, crafts, and so on.

And Then The Wheels Came Off

After staying in Capay for 9 months, it was time to move on to Hillman, Michigan, back to the Thunder Bay Golf & RV resort to work and golf for the next 5 months. Of course getting there was going to take some doing, pulling a trailer 2500 miles across the country is no small feat. We are never in a hurry when we get back on the road. A travel day for us is usually somewhere around 300 miles, give or take, and we like to be off the road no later than 3:00 or 4:00 in the afternoon. We left Capay on May 15th, giving ourselves 10 days to get to Hillman. This included time in Kansas for routine maintenance on our 5th wheel at the Nu-Wa factory, and a two day stop in Grand Junction, Colorado to visit with friends.

 

Everything was going along as planned, and on May 24th we were driving through Indianapolis, Indiana, planning on one more stopover before arriving on Hillman the next day. And that's when the wheels came off…literally…well, just one wheel, but a very important one! Driving down the freeway on the outskirts of Indianapolis at 65 mph, we lost one entire tire with wheel, and irreparably damaged the brake drum and axle from our 5th wheel trailer. The strangest thing was, we didn't initially realize it, as nothing changed in how the truck and trailer were moving along. A motorist who witnessed the tire come off was able to flag us over to the side of the road and tell us what happened, and thank goodness for that, thank goodness for him. The tire bounced across four lanes of traffic, jumped the median wall, and bounced across four more lanes of oncoming traffic before disappearing altogether. It was some kind of miracle that no one was impacted by this runaway tire, including us.

 

We ended up sitting on the side of the freeway for 6 hours waiting for roadside assistance. This was a Thursday, the eve of the Memorial Day weekend, definitely not a good time to break down anywhere, but especially not in Indianapolis as the entire town gears up for the Indy 500 race. But eventually help did arrive, and we were escorted off the freeway into a Sears parking lot in a shopping mall. The repairs were extensive, and could not be completed that day. We ended up staying the night in the parking lot, with permission granted by mall security, and the next day we were back up and running by mid-afternoon. We drove out of the parking lot and just down the road to a nearby RV Park that amazingly wasn't already full, stayed one night, and arrived in Hillman the next day.

 

When I think about how much worse this could have been, how somehow we, and nobody else, was hurt, how no structural damage to our or anyone else's vehicles occurred, I am just totally amazed and grateful. Speaking of grateful, there were so many people who helped us over the course of those two days that I really cannot thank enough. First of all, the motorist who made sure we got safely off the road; the Department of Transportation workers who kept checking on us while we waited for road service to arrive (and, who actually took two trips up and down the highway looking for our tire); the roadside service crew who helped us off the road and eventually made the repairs (although they were well compensated…); and the mall security for allowing us to stay overnight in their parking lot and offered to help us with food and water had we needed it (one good thing about breaking down with your home attached, you pretty much have everything you need). Like I said, things could have been worse, and if money is all we are out when all this was said and done, that is a small price to pay.

 

Below are some pictures of the trailer before and during the repair.

 

Capay, California in The Spring

Before I knew it, our nine months at Capay Open Space Park in Yolo County had come to an end. Although I initially dreaded the thought of staying there for so long, over time I came to really appreciate our little private park (or so it seemed to us most of the time), the surrounding farmlands, the little town of Esparto, and most of all the opportunity to spend time with family and friends. When we arrived at Capay in September everything was brown and dry and windswept (see pictures here). By the time we left in May, Spring had arrived, and a whole other landscape was painted. Below are some pictures of how Capay looked when we left on May 15, 2012.

Grandkids (Soccer, Basketball, Wrestling, Acting)

During the 9 months we stayed in Capay, we took every opportunity to we could to attend the extra curricular activities of the grandkids. It is such joy to watch them as they play soccer, basketball, wrestle, and act in theater productions. Below are pictures of Hannah playing soccer, Colton playing basketball, Atticus wrestling, and Madeline singing in a play.