Posts

Showing posts from June, 2009
Image
Bonnie and I returned from our U.P. tour last night. We had a wonderful time exploring and enjoying the sights, bookstores, coffee shops and gift shops of the Upper Peninsula. These pictures aren't in order of our trip but I have difficulty arranging pictures on this blog. If you know of an easy way to rearrange pictures, I would appreciate hearing from you. Da Yoopers Tourist Trap is in Ispheming . The Vistors Bureau recommended it. It is a glorified gift shop but had many funny things. This is Agate Falls which is along M-28 east of Bruce Crossings. This is the kind of beauty that is everywhere if you are looking for it. Bergland's botanical gardens followed by Bonnie at the Baptist Church in Bergland . We think that may have been Jane's father's church. Jane and Tim Anderson are from Bergland so we stopped to take pictures of their town. Grandpa's Barn is a wonderful bookstore in Copper Harbor. Notice the book the bear is reading. The store had a wo

UP Roadtrip 2009

Image
Bonnie Washburn, my neighbor and dear friend in Caledonia works for a college textbook company and the Upper Peninsula is part of her territory. So Bonnie has combined work trip and an UP adventure and invited me to go along. We left the Cabin early Monday morning and headed out to Bay Mills Community College. We arrived a bit earlier than Bonnie's appointment so our first stop was the Dancing Crane Coffee House. What a pleasant surprise. I wrote about it in detail on http://sharethesault.blogspot.com/. I loved that place and hope to return often. While Bonnie called on clients, I went in the Bay Mills Library and even got my own library card for there. They have a great collection of Native American books. After all that work, it was almost noon so I told Bonnie about a great place for whitefish and we stopped at Wilcox's for lunch. She loved it too. We had whitefish sandwiches, and she even had whitefish chowder. Our next stop was Pictured Rocks near Munising. We wen

Last Week in Caledonia

Image
Last week we returned to Caledonia to see our family. Jen arrived home from North Carolina for her summer vacation. Eric came to town between meetings in Chicago. We had a great time together. Each of the kids went to visit Grandma Benedict who is doing very well. You can see from the pictures how great she looks. While we were up in the Sault, a tree beside our barn was hit by lightening. There were bark and wood splinters blown all over our yard-up to 50 - 70 feet from the tree. The only damage inside the barn seemed to be Tom's radio. But two days later, our well's electrical system burned out so we don't know if that was coincidental or not. Thankfully we were able to get it fixed the same day-thanks to Buer Well Drilling. This picture shows where the bark was blown off the tree. We are now back at the Cabin until June 27th. We will be returning then for a family bridal shower. I'm going on a road trip this week with my friend and neighbor Bonnie. We are

Back in Caledoina

We had a busy week at the cabin and returned to Caledonia yesterday. We got lots of yard work done but there is still lots to do. Sault Ste. Marie is offering community garden spots behind my parent's house and I told my dad I wanted to put in one. So he tilled and raked up the spot but I haven't even had time to plant it. I was going to do that on Thursday but the spot was too wet. This wet and cool spring hasn't been good for growing. Lilacs and apple blossoms are out there because everything seems late this year. Jen arrived safely after a 14 hour drive. She was stuck in traffic near Ann Arbor for an hour but other than that, her trip went well. She had her 3 pets with her which made the trip a bit more difficult. Tonight Eric is driving to town from Chicago where he has been working for a couple of days. He will be here until Tuesday so we are looking forward to spending time with two of our kids.

Festival in Grand Rapids

Image
We are back home in Caledonia for several reasons.  However, the most important is to check on Tom's mom who was back in the hospital for several days.  She is back at her assisted living facility now which makes us very happy. Tom had a chance to do a delivery for Broadmoor Motors.  They do a great deal of business on-line and had sold a boat to a woman in Kansas.  So Tom decided to take the job.  However, the delivery had to be this weekend and it was our 39th wedding anniversary.  He left here at 5 AM Friday morning and was going to get a motel after making the 13 hour drive to Wichita.  However, he decided that he wanted to be back for our anniversary.  After making the delivery, he continued driving all the way home.  30 hours of driving and he only stopped once to eat and snacked a few times other than that.  Now that is dedication and love!   After a 5 hour sleep, he was up and we spent the afternoon and evening together. Friday night I babysat the grandkids.  I took them to

Good Morning Friends

Now these are the mornings that make memories for us here at the Cabin.  We had a beautiful sunrise over Sugar Island.  I didn't see the light show at the beginning of the sunrise.  It is always a combination of pinks and blues but happens very early here in the UP.  The first signs of morning come near 4 AM.  When I'm home in Caledonia I am up at 4:30 so I would see it but here at the Cabin I have no friends waiting for me to come run or walk.  So I see the later parts of the sunrise. Yesterday was errand day because it was cold and rainy and that limited our outside work.  There are lots of small details to open a second home.  Mail delivery is the biggest headache.  Getting our mail to where we are is hard because we've been in so many places in the last year.  Any suggestions for easy and affordable forwarding of the mail?  Then we had to set up trash pick-up.  We also visited 4 hardware stores looking for replacement bolts for our water heater.  No luck-it's too ol