Still early in the morning, we pulled in to a Welcome Center in Mackinaw City. The woman behind the counter was super friendly. She loaded us down with all sorts of brochures which made me wonder if they get a commission based on how many pounds of tourist brochures they push out the door. When she learned we were interested in lighthouses, she stepped into the back room and returned with a rolled-up poster. She said they thought they were ordering something the size of an 8x10 but ended up with a box of full-sized posters showing all the lighthouses in Michigan. It seemed too extravagant to refuse so I graciously accepted it, found a place to protect it under the bed, and later gave it to a friend back home who had given us lots of pointers on what to see in the Upper Peninsula. While we were thumbing through brochures we were also filling several water jugs with filtered water available inside the center.
Almost as soon as we left the Welcome Center we were crossing the Mackinac Bridge, an engineering marvel. It is a five-mile-long suspension bridge that connects the Upper and Lower peninsulas of Michigan. It spans the Straits of Mackinac, a body of water connecting Lake Michigan and Lake Huron. Of course I was doing the driving. That meant Jenni had to take pictures and video which I always think will distract her from her fears, but I’m always wrong about that. We made it to the other side without any claw marks in the dashboard and I sought out a state park that I read had a great view of the bridge. It’s much more calming to look at it from a distance than to drive it.
So if you noticed, the town we stopped in was Mackinaw City—with a ‘w’—but the bridge was Mackinac—with a ‘c’. Yet, they are pronounced the same with the “aw” sound. I don’t know why and I didn’t have enough cellular bars to look it up. Once we returned home it was no longer important to me so, if it bothers you, please research it and get back to me.
One of our reasons for being up and out so early on a Sunday was to attend church in the town of St. Ignace, located at the base of the bridge on the Upper Peninsula side. As part of our travel experience, we like to fit in a worship experience in different churches if it suits our travel schedule. If it doesn't, we can always watch a recorded service from our home church.
St. Ignace is a port city for reaching the famous Mackinac Island. At that point, we had not yet decided if we were going to attempt the annual bridge walk on Labor Day and then go over to Mackinac Island but the latter was looking more doubtful. The church we selected to attend was St. Ignace United Methodist Church. It was an A-framed sanctuary with pretty stained glass and crank-out windows to get a cool breeze. (Imagine having only THAT in the South!) It was a great service. The new pastor gave us permission to stay in the parking lot overnight if we wanted and actually thanked us for seeking permission! We tended to Annie and then walked a few blocks to a craft show taking place near the ferry docks. Our only purchase was brats (sausage in a bun) for lunch to support the local animal shelter.
We took a few minutes to discuss our options at that point. Jenni was sure she was not going to do the bridge walk on Labor Day. To me, the appeal of the ‘novelty’ and a possible T-shirt far exceeded the desire to walk five miles with thousands of strangers so I decided I would skip it as well. That left whether to take a ferry to Mackinac Island as the next decision. Ultimately, we passed due to the Labor Day crowds, having to take Annie with us and keep up with her on the island, and the logistics of the ferry ride. We also assumed that riding horse-drawn carriages wouldn’t be that unique of an experience from doing so back in Charleston, SC.
Instead, we opted to drive north to Sault Ste. Marie, MI and visit the Soo Locks which proved to be very entertaining. More on that next week!
]]>
An hour after sunset a group of young people arrived. They were loud and dramatic, but I don’t think they were drunk. Perhaps they were just looking for some ‘inspiration’ from the overlook. After they had been there quite some time, I popped out of Wanda and proceeded to take a few pictures of the horizon as a passive-aggressive approach to let them know they were intruding on our spot. They left about twenty minutes later. Another vehicle did arrive later and parked a couple spaces down from us for the night. About 2:30AM a light rained switched over to winds that rocked the van and a few pings of hail on the roof. It quieted down only for another wave to pass through two hours later. Around 8AM there was noticeable thunder and lightning so we pulled out and drove through a light rain to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.
As we pulled up to the Sleeping Bear entrance booth, a ranger slid her window open and greeted us with “We were expecting you today!”. What a warm welcome! The road was six to eight miles of scenic, twisting roads with a dozen pullouts or overlooks. The ranger told us which ones not to miss and we set off. The main attraction was #9 which gave us a view of the sand slope that went down to the lakeshore. It was so steep that most people going down had to fight the urge to run down. But they then had to climb out on all fours! A sign at the top proclaimed there was a $3,000 fine if the rangers had to rescue you from the bottom! The winds were wicked and the sand was damp that day. We ventured to an boardwalk overlook to watch some of the people tumble down the slope (and they did tumble). We then climbed a sand dune crest and took a short path that gave us a view of the islands in Lake Michigan and then we returned to the main gathering place for the descent to the shore and watched a few people try to build up enough courage to make the assault. Back at Wanda, it was better for us to take our shoes off and beat them outside the van to knock out the sand. We made a few other stops along the scenic road before exiting and heading to Petoskey. In all, Sleeping Bear was beautiful, from the drive to the sand dunes to the distant views.
A fellow traveler, Motorcycle Man, from the previous day’s overlook campsite had recommended Petoskey as an interesting place to stop on our journey so that was next on our agenda. Along the way, we fixed lunch at a state park in Traverse City and bought fresh tomatoes, plums, and apples at a roadside stand. Orchards in this area were plentiful. Petoskey’s downtown was bustling like most of the other small towns we had encountered. It was the Labor Day weekend so that could have been the reason, but the town also looked like an inviting tourist destination. Bike trails were plentiful and being taken advantage of by many cyclists. We found a United Methodist church that we considered using for the night and sent a message to their contact information on social media requesting permission. As it turned out, we did not hear back for several hours and had already made other plans.
Motorcycle Man had also recommended driving through the Tunnel of Trees west of Petoskey. Once we reached it, we traveled under a tree canopy along a narrow road for about a half hour. We seriously began to question Motorcycle Man’s credentials for making recommendations. While it was somewhat pleasant, it did not equal previous forest driving experiences or even the ride along the Sleeping Bear road earlier that day. I suppose it could be very beautiful later in the fall. But it did lead us to our campsite for the night which was a secluded spot in a state forest, forty yards off a small highway, so that was a good thing. In camp, we washed a few clothes and hung them to dry outside, took showers, and had soft tacos with fresh tomatoes for dinner later that night. I don’t think a single vehicle drove by after 8PM.
]]>
We woke up in St. Joseph, MI to the August Blue Moon—the second full moon of the month—setting over Lake Michigan. We simply threw open the back doors and watched it before we even fixed our coffee.
We knew we needed some “touristy” information on Michigan--especially a map if we lost GPS capabilities--so we made it a priority to find a welcome center for some maps and brochures. After a Google search, the first one we were led to showed no signs of ever existing. The next closest one was physically there, but judging by the wilted plants we could see through the windows, had been closed for several weeks. Before we could begin our quest for a third welcome center we discovered that our on-board potty had malfunctioned! I won’t go into the disgusting details, but suffice it to say that the urine diverter did not divert the urine into the correct container. Fortunately, we designed our potty to have a backup plan or secondary catchment and it did just what it was intended to do, sparing us from any mess on the floor. However, we did have to find a secluded spot where we could wash and disinfect the containers. I actually employed the use of Google Maps to do this and saw on the map a nearby dirt road behind a grove of trees that would allow us some privacy. After a thorough scrubbing and rinsing we were ready to resume our search for some tourist information. Our next option was over an hour away in Douglas, MI. We hopped on a major highway to make better time.
At the Douglas welcome center we found a most-friendly woman with plenty of maps, ideas, and recommendations.
Based on recommendations from the kind lady at the Douglas, MI Welcome Center, we explored a little bit of Douglas’ Lakeshore Drive with its million-dollar views.
Then we drove a short distance to Saugatuck and its bustling, historic downtown. There were several blocks of unique stores and cafes. We finally found a parking space Wanda would fit, got Annie situated, and then explored the downtown on foot. It was remarkable how busy the town was on a Thursday morning, but we didn’t do much shopping and few of the cafes appealed to us. Pulling out of our parking space only required a ten-point turn to get Wanda pointed back to the main road. From there we returned to Douglas and followed up on the recommendation for great pizza at a place called Back Alley. They were only doing carry-out which was fine with us. While I waited, I asked the two ladies (and co-owners) about their favorite place for a sunrise or sunset. They said they worked too much to have one, which was kind of sad. We devoured our pizza in the van before driving around downtown a little more and admiring the flowers planted everywhere.
It was time to check off some lighthouses, so we headed to Holland, MI to find the Big Red Lighthouse. Before we could approach it we needed a park pass. For what I considered the bargain of the entire trip, I bought a Michigan State Park Pass, good at all state parks and forests for the remainder of the year, for $39. I followed the woman’s instructions on where to fasten the sticker which proved to be problematic the rest of our time in Michigan. From there, we found Big Red Lighthouse (built in 1872). It was indeed big and red and required walking through sand to reach a suitable viewing perspective.
From there we drove more and found two more lighthouses (built in 1939) in Grand Haven. They were red as well and connected by a catwalk-type pier. Jenni stayed in Wanda with Annie while I ventured a little closer but the angle of the afternoon sun made photos useless.
At some point during the day we made our first campground reservation of the trip at a county-owned campground near Ludington, MI that night. Mason County had a very nice site in the woods near a water reservoir on the coast of Lake Michigan. The berm to the reservoir was so high that I insisted it must be a landfill until I used Google Maps for a birds-eye view. The camp host was making rounds on his golf cart when we arrived and tried to tell us we couldn’t park in our spot. I showed him the confirmation we had on our phone and he finally admitted he had not been back to his office in a few hours to check on last-minute bookings. He left and later returned to our site to give us a map. Annie, who had been lethargic since the start of the trip, was feeling better by now and joined us for a walk to a remote-controlled airplane runway nearby and we watched grown men play with their toys.
It was nice to have power for the night to fully charge the batteries but more importantly there were hot showers on site! The showers were quarter-operated but the two of us were able to bathe on what Jenni declared to be the best quarter she had ever spent! It felt good to be clean.
The night was pleasantly cool and quiet. The campers next to us had a toddler and an infant, plus dogs, but they all slept quietly too! We heard a little crying in the morning, but by 10AM we were headed into Ludington for gas and then to Ludington State Park and Big Sable Point Lighthouse.
We made some big mistakes hiking to Big Sable Point Lighthouse, which you can read about here.
]]>
We circled several blocks near the capitol building but, unlike every other capital we had visited, could never get very close. (Kuddos to the Hoosier State for enhanced security!) The downtown did look interesting but since it was hot, we chose to see it from the comfort of the air-conditioned van rather than walking around. Annie agreed. We found the stadium of the Indianapolis Colts professional football team and parked in some shade near it for lunch. We considered taking a lap in Wanda on the Indy 500 track but didn't want to show off. So we left the city, traveling the interstate for a while before electing to do some smaller roads through rural areas to reach the Indiana Dunes National Park Visitor Center.
At the visitor center we purchased our America the Beautiful Annual Pass, allowing us access to all national parks, monuments, historical sites, etc for $80. That’s a great deal! We knew there was no overnight parking allowed in the national park but, based on something I had read, I asked one of the rangers about my options. He confirmed what I knew, but then said we were allowed to overnight in the visitor center’s parking lot—but no “camping”. The parking lot seemed to offer a nice buffer from nearby highways so Jenni and I agreed we would just slide back into their parking lot when we were done for the day. Armed with a map, we drove to Porter Beach where we secured the only open spot in the parking lot.
At Porter Beach we quickly remembered how difficult it is to walk in sand. Annie simply gave up after thirty yards and laid down on the sand. We coaxed her to the water line of Lake Michigan but she remained unimpressed.
We did not stay long. After checking out some of the sand dunes, we gave up our coveted parking space in search of a better beach which we found a little to the west at Portage where we enjoyed a nice walk (without Annie).
We drove over to West Beach which had great amenities for those spending time on the beach including concessions and cold showers. There was a brief discussion about showering there but when we confirmed there was only cold water, we passed. By then the winds were quite fierce and we decided to return to Portage for sunset and dinner in the parking lot. It was a great show of colors. As it grew dark, we drove the short distance back to the visitor center parking lot for the night and slid into a spot adjacent to the pet walking area so we could just slide the door open and let Annie out. There was a large field of natural prairie grasses and wild flowers next to us. We had a pleasant and quiet night.
When we woke up the next morning, we waited for the Visitor Center to open at 8AM so we could use their restrooms and hot water. Then we refilled several of our water bottles using their filtered water station. Our plan was to visit an historical cabin and homestead on park property but the directions to the parking exceeded my comprehension and patience so we punted on that excursion and moved east along the shoreline to Beverly Shores on Lake Front Drive. It offered an historic section of “modern” homes from the 1933 World’s Fair Exhibition in Chicago. Several homes had been relocated to the south shore of Lake Michigan and offered an interesting study in architecture. Each house was a different example of "modern architecture" in 1933--the most notable one looked like Barbie's pink Malibu house. From their vantage point, far beyond the crashing waves, we could see the Chicago skyline thirty-five miles away.
When we were done dreaming about living in a pink, modern-style, Barbie beach house we said goodbye to Indiana Dunes and headed to South Bend, IN—home of Notre Dame University. We last visited the campus in 1994 and I just wanted to relive that memory. Evidently I should have just stuck with the memories, as is so often the case, because very little of the present-day campus seemed to match my memory. Whereas I could remember once walking around the football stadium this time it seemed as if they had moved it and boxed it in with a dozen buildings. We remembered easier access to the cathedral with the gold dome and the mural of ‘touchdown Jesus’ as well. Admittedly, it is not easy to maneuver a big white van across a college campus. Technically we never stepped foot on campus this trip but we did spend time driving around the perimeter and one brave assault to the center of campus using the main entrance while students were changing classes. I forgot for a moment that pedestrians have the right of way.
From South Bend, IN it was a relatively short drive back to the shore of Lake Michigan. This time we landed at St. Joseph, MI where we found a lake overlook park and set out our solar panel briefcase to harness a little battery life while we relaxed.
I have previously shared our incredible Culver's drive-thru experience that night but it's here if you want a laugh.
]]>
Throughout last year we had been making small trips in Wanda—rarely more than three or four nights on the road and mostly within the Carolinas. We were craving a longer adventure and decided upon a trip to the Great Lakes.
]]>
Throughout last year we had been making small trips in Wanda—rarely more than three or four nights on the road and mostly within the Carolinas. We were craving a longer adventure and decided upon a trip to the Great Lakes.
Why the Great Lakes? Well, it would check off two states that neither Wanda (the van) nor Annie (the dog) had ever visited (because, you know, it was important to them) plus it offered another chance to visit Canada. Hopefully we would remember our passports and not botch it like we had the last time we reached the border! Where were we going? We weren’t really sure. Several friends told us how beautiful the Upper Peninsula of Michigan was so we knew we wanted to see that as well as Indiana Dunes National Park. I had also read about a wolf center in Minnesota that wouldn’t be too far out of the way if we were going to Voyageur National Park so that was on the list for the time being. We made no reservations and had no idea how long we would stay in each area.
Life was kind of hectic in the last few days leading up to our planned departure. I was chasing my tail with insurance and pharmacies trying to get an ample supply of a new heart medication and had church commitments as well. Our planned departure was Monday, August 28th. I’m still not sure how we managed to get Wanda packed on the last night, other than Jenni doing much of it while I was at an evening church meeting.
But we got it done and pulled out of our driveway Monday morning at 9 AM. Anytime we travel west from our home, unless we are going to Texas, we have to cross the Appalachian Mountains. We took I-40 west from Asheville and Jenni busied herself counting halves of manufactured homes being hauled east. They were generally in matching pairs but at some point the count was at seventeen and we wondered what someone would do with only half a house.
Our first stop was a new Buc-ee’s outside Sevierville, TN. For the two Northerners not aware, Buc-ee’s is a chain of gas station/convenience store/mall/restaurant with the cleanest, and most plentiful, restrooms on the road. This one actually has a red light/green light above each bathroom stall to let you know if it is occupied—it saves you from having to jiggle each door or stoop down to look for shoes. It also affords the occupant a little more alone-time. At the time of our visit this location was the largest of their stores, but they always seem to be building bigger and better. We have often found a stop at Buc-ee’s to be overwhelming—so many people, so much retail merchandise, and so loud! But the offset to all that is extremely clean restrooms and usually the cheapest gas around. That was certainly the case with this stop where we paid $3.09 per gallon for unleaded gasoline. (Later in our trip we paid as much as $4.99 per gallon). After filling the tank, we moved over to the retail store. Jenni remarked that this had to be the only time she had ever seen someone use a grocery cart in a gas station! We purchased a sliced brisket sandwich and a smoked turkey sandwich for our lunch (but only shared the turkey) and some lemon crisp cookies that had been recommended to me by a friend. She was right to do so!
Outside of Chattanooga, TN we turned north on I-75 toward Lexington, KY. Rain and fog made it tough to see. In Lexington we turned west on I-64 and stopped in Frankfort to check another state capital off our list. (Okay, not really trying to see all the capitals but if we are fairly close it is usually a nice stop to see how close we can get a big white van next to the capitol building!). In this case, the building was covered in scaffolding so we let Annie run through some thick green grass—I told her it was Kentucky Blue Grass but she was not impressed—and then we continued west.
In Louisville we crossed the Ohio River into Indiana and started moving north toward Indianapolis. By then, Jenni had found a couple possible campsites for the night. Plan A was a campground in Clark State Forest near Henryville, IN. It was self-pay and only $15. When we picked our spot there was only a motorcyclist a couple sites away. He made his way over to us for a chat, sharing with us that he was a chef at a Christian camp a few miles away and he likes to come here to unwind on his day off. He offered us a tiki torch he had picked up on his litter patrol but we knew we would not use it so we declined. He seemed genuinely disappointed. Later, he doused his fire and left; he did not return. In the morning, we saw that one other camper with a larger rig had joined us during the night. That made two campers in an area with almost forty sites.
In a bold experiment, we had forced Annie to sleep on the floor that night which proved to be a bad decision. She was very noisy walking around and shaking her collar. It looked like she would be joining us in the bed the rest of the trip!
As I drove out of the campground, I wanted to drop some trash in a dumpster. I opened the lid to a practically empty dumpster and was startled by movement! In the shadows I could see a young raccoon in the corner. Jenni said I had to do something to help him because there was no way he could get out on his own. I flipped one lid open and then found a large tree limb I could put in the dumpster that would reach from the floor to the top so he could climb out. The rest was up to him.
From there, we were headed to Indianapolis.
If you have already experienced this rite of passage then you understand the Herculean task it can be as well as the depth of emotion that comes with it. And if you haven’t, well, I wish you strength, patience, and whatever else you may need when your time comes.
When we emptied my parents’ home, there were large piles and tubs of photos and historical family documents. You see, they had gone through this same rite of passage with their own parents. My siblings and I did the best we could to sift through everything but in the end I can remember on the final day scooping up several old photo albums, putting them in a large Rubber Maid tub, and telling myself I would sort through them ‘one winter day’. I’m not sure why I didn’t see this as a summer project; every year that passed I would tell myself that I would deal with the collection of memories in the winter, preferably after being snowed in for a week. It hasn’t snowed here yet this winter, but Jenni encouraged me to get started.
The first step of organization was dividing things into categories—the four main branches of my lineage. So I made a pile of anything McAda-related which included more documents than photographs. There just aren’t many photographs of those ancestors. I always saw them as being dirt-poor, without the resources for cameras or studio portraits. I think I’ve only seen two or three photographs of my father before the age of sixteen. Once he was in his late teens and raising award-winning steers in the local Future Farmers of America taking pictures of him and his livestock seemed to hit a spurt.
But included in this pile was a plethora of documents. Many people had set out to draw the McAda family tree over the years, myself included, and there were the diagrams and charts to support those attempts. There were envelopes full of correspondence dating back to the 1970s between distant cousins trying to fill in gaps in their collective memories. One of the treasures I had already gone through and transcribed was a box of my father’s war letters written to his mother during his WWII service in the Pacific. But one of the most treasured items for me to still peruse was the accounting ledger of my Great-Grandfather Hampton David McAda. I had seen it before, stored under my father’s bed and later in a bedroom cabinet, but I had never taken the time to analyze it.
This ledger was written in a strikingly handsome handwriting which really made me question when our family genes lost that ability. The first entries were from 1893 and showed that he was teaching himself Spanish for common farming and ranching phrases. Then he began to record every penny that passed through his household. Whether he was selling a bale of cotton or a cow, or buying baking powder or a ‘bucket of syrup’, there was a line item and dollar amount neatly written in the ledger. Sometimes columns of neat numbers seemed to have tic marks indicating they were double checked. Perhaps accounting was in my blood after all. Tucked away in the pages was a Kenedy Mercantile Co. receipt for a bale of cotton weighing 535 lbs that brought him $49.80 on August 17, 1906.
Recording those proceeds was one of the last entries recorded by my Great-Grandfather. Family legend says that he died from Typhoid Fever after being ill forty days. In a time when doctors would “starve a fever and feed a cold”, he basically starved to death. He died September 20, 1906, so perhaps family lore should be amended to thirty days of fever. Family legend also recounts that his widow, Virginia Butler McAda, was forced to sell 300 acres of land and several boxcars of cattle to pay the medical bills. In addition to the medical bills, she had farmhands and six children under the age of eleven to feed. My grandfather, Creg Deal McAda, was nine and the oldest boy.
(This photo is the Hamp McAda public school, Kenedy, TX, 1905 from the Kenedy Public Library Collection. Great-Grandparents Hampton David and Virginia Butler McAda are the adults on the right side, back row. My grandfather, Creg Deal McAda, is the little boy with white collar in second row, fifth from right. All five of his siblings are in this photo, including the baby, making this the only photo known to include the entire Hamp McAda family.)
And that ledger?
On October 10, 1906 the handwriting and clear organization changed to that of a grieving widow trying to wrap her hands around her finances and the survival of her family. Her first entry appears as the disposition of sixteen head of cattle for $190.07, most of which seems to have gone to the bank. There would be more entries later for horses and more cattle being sold, as well as nurse and doctor bills being paid. But her pages were more chaotic, almost desperate. One page is titled “Paid in full Nurses” and a dollar amount written as “$10.22.75 cts” but then written in word form as “one hundred & twenty to.” While there are some pages missing from the ledger, she appears to have stopped recording entries later in 1907. In less than four years the children would lose their mother in a tragic accident involving her dress catching fire while cooking and then dying from pneumonia.
It hurts my heart to think of the tragedies which hit this family between the pages of that ledger.
No greater assurance of potential food poisoning was ever uttered than those words. But what proud Southern grandma hasn’t spoken similar words? I’m pretty sure my own mother used that phrase from time to time.
Growing up, eating leftovers was no big deal. It was part of the rhythm of our household. Six days a week my mother cooked our noon meal while she made breakfast. The burners were then turned off with the pots still sitting on them, and my mother commuted the 100 yards to work at my father’s veterinary clinic. At approximately 11:30AM she would walk back down the dirt trail to the house, turn the burners on low, check whatever was in the oven, and either return to work for a few minutes or wait for the rest of the family to come in at noon.
All the pots were put directly on the blue formica table so you could help yourself to seconds. Occasionally a visiting drug salesman would be invited to join us. They would be told we were treating them like family by serving straight from the pots. (We came to know some of those salesmen like family because their periodic visits always seemed to coincide with lunchtime!). I did have relatives who would never serve straight from the pot and others who asked you to fix your plate in the kitchen and then sit down. I preferred our family practice for its simplicity and ease of clean-up.
After lunch, as the table was cleared, most pots were put back on the stove. On most days, the kitchen was now closed and whatever we might eat for supper would either be reheated from those same pots or consist of a white-bread sandwich with processed, sliced ham or bologna. These were the days before microwaves, so reheating the meal broke it down a little bit more and required less chewing. As a child, I never knew the term al dente. I also never knew vegetables like broccoli and cauliflower could be something other than mush with a slice of American cheese melted over them. But with six in the family, leftovers did not usually last long.
I do recall the time my mother spent weeks in the hospital when I was about five years old. My paternal grandmother came to town to help take care of us kids. (I was the only one not in school at the time.) She made mash potatoes one day. A lot of them. The next day they came out of the refrigerator—cold. The quantity only reduced slightly after that meal so they arrived on the table again the next day. Only my father ate them that day. I was young, but I think they surfaced twice more for lunch that week. Either Dad finished them off or my grandmother shared what was left with the cows that would gather at the back fence for handouts.
Many years later, after my mother passed away and my father was on his own, visiting his house was a test in digestive courage. We never knew what we might find opening the refrigerator. Well-meaning friends brought him food quite often, and we even arranged for a restaurant to deliver meals for a couple years, but his appetite could not keep up with the volume of food and his desire to throw it out was stuck somewhere in his depression-era habits. Sometimes we acted as if we ate it but threw it out and sometimes we did our best to convince the dogs to give it a try. After a few tongue lashings, we learned to spread out the mysterious disappearance over several days of our visit.
Leftovers can be a blessing, a curse, and even a puzzle to solve. They can save the day when it’s evening, it has been a long day, and you need a quick meal. Or they can make you wonder what exactly will happen to your body if you ignore the sniff-test and consume them anyway. And they are always a good test of your memory—when, exactly, did we last have fish?
If you don’t eat this, I’m going to have to throw it out!
]]>
That trip to Pemaquid Point Lighthouse was a last-minute decision on that trip. It was more than an hour (one-way) detour from our planned route—just to see ONE lighthouse. But photos showed it to be quite a beauty and a family we had met the day before highly recommended seeing it, so we made the decision to go and never regretted it. In my second book, Living With Wanda 2, one of the chapters describes the lighthouse but more importantly the “lightkeeper and lobsterman” we met in the museum that day. He was a 92-year-old WWII veteran named Kendrick who was spending his retirement years being a docent in the lightkeeper’s museum where he could share his vast knowledge of lobster-fishing as well as living on the Maine coast. We may have briefly hatched a plan to take him back home with us. He was a delight.
In the time following our encounter I often thought of Kendrick. I guess his tenacity just reminded me so much of my own father--WWII vet, age has nothing to do with how long you work. Luckily small town newspapers can be a wealth of information—with a little online research, I learned that he had a fall a few months after we were there and he broke his hip. I feared the worst, but then a story was published this past October informing the community that their beloved “Energizer Bunny” was back home from rehab. That’s the latest I can find and I wish him all the best in his recovery.
But back to the lighthouse, sort of.
When I pulled away from Pemaquid on that September day I could safely assume that I would probably never be back to see it, or my lobsterman, again. But I wasn’t prepared to hear of a storm taking down one of the historic structures I had walked through. Jenni and I waited our turn that day to go inside the brick structure and then sit in Adirondack chairs beside the bell house so we could enjoy the sunshine and listen to crashing waves far below on the granite rocks. After this month’s storm, I saw photos on social media of not only the scattered red bricks but also the Adirondack chairs strewn like a child would do his toys in a temper tantrum.
It made me ponder all the other “last times” I saw something or someone.
When I used to commute to work, I drove by a barn twice a day. I always said I wanted to get a photo of it. And then one day a bulldozer beat me and took it down. I only have a fading mental image and can’t even spot the location now when I drive that road.
When my mother was slipping from consciousness in 2006, my sister called me (in South Carolina) from her bedside (in Texas) and let us speak for a few seconds. My mother’s last words to me were “I love you” in a manner that only she could utter. I hear that recording in my mind quite often.
In the following years, I often left my father’s house thinking “this will be the last time” and then one day it was.
The last time I held my son’s hand while walking around an amusement park came without realizing it. And it makes me wonder when will be the last time my granddaughter gives me a hug and a “pat-pat-pat” on the back.
“Last times” can be beautiful. And they can be painful—maybe not in the moment but later in the realization. And they can be gone without even knowing they are gone.
]]>
I’m not sure if others felt the same, but between the Thanksgiving-Christmas-New Year’s holidays and various illnesses in our household we seemed to lack any kind of routine the past couple months. At least one of us seemed to be sick through most of December and in some cases both of us were at the same time. Life seems to be finally getting back on track.
This week, after about a two-month break, our local library started their programming up again. If you think libraries are only a place for checking out books or getting free Wi-Fi, you should take a second look. Our local library, and all the ones in our county, have great programs for families and especially children. You may find the same is true where you live. The program I am most familiar with is Bouncing Babies, described as a time for stories, rhymes, music, and bouncing games for ages 1 to 18 months. Jenni and I usually try to take our granddaughter Emma to this on Wednesdays and give her mom a chance to do other things. We spend an hour singing and bouncing as well as learning to share toys with about twenty other children who are all at the same stage of learning how to share! (The adults are generally pretty good about sharing!)
This past Wednesday, Jenni had a church event to attend so it was just me and Emma for that hour at the library. I don’t know the names of any adults who attend, but that afternoon I could describe to Jenni various children and she knew exactly who I was talking about. One in particular I just refer to as my “girlfriend” and Jenni instantly knows it is the little toddler who likes to bring me every toy in the room. Sometimes when you are the only grandpa in the room you become a “chick magnet”! I don’t know about Emma, but I’ve been able to make several new friends through this program! The hour gives the moms in the group, and the occasional dad, a chance to talk to other moms living the same highs and lows. I’m not so sure they care what an old man has to say, so I just roll the ball to their children and do my best to monitor the toys that pass mouth to mouth. The few grandparents in the group do tend to bond more easily.
I noticed this week that the other grandparents seem more exhausted than Jenni or I do. But as far as I know they are caretakers 5 days a week so I totally get that. For me, the one day a week that we have Emma is generally the ONLY day I take a nap!
I was very interested in another library program announced at our meeting: Potato Chip Party! Evidently the children will learn the history of potato chips, eat potato chips, and make a craft (out of potato chips I assume). Unfortunately this one is geared toward older children so I’ll have to wait a couple years to participate—with Emma of course!
Routine is important to someone with the mindset of an accountant, even in retirement. It’s nice to be back into it.
Let me back up a little.
Part of planning a big trip in our van Wanda includes time staring blankly at a map. Paper works best as I can sometimes see details and routes I miss on a digital map. In this particular case, it was probably May or early June and we were just starting to talk about where we would go that fall. Through some social media acquaintances, we began to hear about the beautiful northern shore of Lake Superior from Duluth, MN to the Canadian border. We definitely wanted to do that and while we were that far north, I wanted to check off Voyageurs National Park near International Falls, MN.
As I studied a map of that area, I realized there were a lot of lakes and trees in northern Minnesota and not too many towns, or even major roads for that matter. I saw about two options to get from the north shore to Voyageurs NP. One of them went through Ely, MN and when I looked closer at the Ely area I noticed something about a wolf center. I was hooked! Who hasn’t dreamed of seeing a wolf?!
So, in the middle of September we pulled Wanda into the parking lot of the International Wolf Center. I thought Annie, our traveling Chihuahua, would have been on high alert with her sensitive nose, but she was more interested in the fact it was indeed mealtime. So while she ate, Jenni and I slipped out of the van and went inside. We had already purchased our senior-discounted tickets online which was a nice convenience so we were able to start walking around immediately. The center got its physical start in the 1990s. They are licensed by the US Department of Agriculture, which gives them legitimacy above a “road-side carnival”. The USDA even limits the number of wolves they can have in their pack.
The center has wonderful educational exhibits with taxidermized wolves, descriptions of their habits, and their interaction with humans. But we were there to see wolves! Early morning is best for this, but we couldn’t control that so here we were hoping for the best at noon. For observation purposes, they have large glass windows facing the wooded living area with a large indoor amphitheater where we could watch the wolves and listen to several presentations spread throughout the afternoon.
At the time of our visit, their pack numbered five. All wolves at the center are sterilized—this is not a breeding program. Over the years they have had more than a dozen previous subjects. When space allows, they acquire pups and slowly introduce them to the rest of the pack and allow them to bond with the caretakers as well. As part of their daily enrichment, the caretakers threw out a frozen beaver tail which allowed us to observe the hierarchal interaction of the five wolves. By the way, a frozen beaver tail can last a long time! On this particular day, a college baseball team was visiting so some special demonstrations had been arranged for them but we got to enjoy them as well. The highlight of the day was when a caretaker prompted the wolf pack to start howling! The eerie sounds went on for several minutes. I could not imagine my reaction if I was camped in the woods and heard a sound like that! Coyote yipping has always given me the chills but the wolf howling was very different, very mournful.
The caretakers feed the pack from donated roadkill (mostly deer) but told us that occasionally a wild animal will find its way into the 1.25 acre enclosure and that is when the wolves get to use their hunting skills. After we returned home I read on their Instagram page that a skunk had ventured into the enclosure. His potent way of protecting himself did not spare his life!
After we spent a couple hours in the center that day, we returned to our wild canine in the van where we had to wake Annie from a deep, snoring sleep on her queen size bed. Yep, she’s just a couple generations removed from her wild cousins!
Why is the service called the Longest Night service? It could just as easily be called the Shortest Day Service but that just doesn’t sound as poetic, does it? But in truth, December 21st has the least amount of daylight in the year. 9 Hours, 51 minutes, and 42 seconds of daylight here in Greenville, SC to be precise. The day before had 3 seconds more daylight and by Christmas we will be enjoying 21 more seconds of light than the 21st. Do the math, and logic tells you if this day has the least amount of light, then it must have the most amount of darkness, making it The Longest Night. So from today’s sunset at 5:22 until tomorrow’s sunrise at 7:33 there is darkness.
Have you ever made plans to watch the sun rise? If so, you know to do so you have to get up while it is still dark. When I was employed, I caught the sunrise most mornings on my commute. Many were glorious and actually made it worth my time to go to work. Sometimes (many) it was the ONLY thing I enjoyed about my workday!
I must admit that since I retired and put away my alarm clock, I see way more sunsets than I do sunrises. But sometimes my wife Jenni and I like to make plans to see the sun rise in a special location like Bald Rock or, our favorite, Pretty Place at Camp Greenville.
Some of you know that Jenni and I travel the country in our self-made campervan. Sunrises are fairly easy to catch if we have overnighted in a place with an open view. We just pull the window shades or roll open the sliding door. On our travels, we’ve caught sunrises from rock quarries to badlands to mountain tops.
But to catch the sunrise from a special place like Pretty Place, we have to do some planning and have a little faith. We have to leave our house while it’s still dark and, honestly, have no assurance that there will be a colorful sunrise. That means negotiating curvy roads and climbing steep elevations in the dark. Even though we have traveled the road up past Caesars Head many times, we still get lost in the many curves and switchbacks, especially in the dark. Even when we get to our destination, if we’ve timed it correctly, it’s still dark. And then we sit. And Wait. We’re never sure what it will look like exactly, but we do know the sun WILL rise, and we have faith it will be marvelous and worth the early morning drive.
At this time of the year, we are focused on the birth of the Christ-child, but for a few minutes I want to shift that focus to his crucifixion.
When Jesus was crucified, things were chaotic. His disciples were heartbroken. Roman soldiers were cruel. The sky was doing crazy things—it turned DARK in the middle of the day! And then it was finished and time was running out on the day and they had to get Jesus’ body into a tomb. The next day was the sabbath so the women who followed him knew the proper burial treatment of his body would have to wait.
All the gospels give important details of what transpired on that third day, but I was recently inspired by The Reverand Jonathan Holston, United Methodist Bishop of the South Carolina Annual Conference, to look more closely at the gospel of John. It is in John 20:1 that we read: “Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance.”
While it was STILL DARK she set about doing her tasks. Mary’s work ethic is much stronger than mine. Evidently stronger than the other disciples too. While it was STILL DARK she went to the tomb.
Could this have been Mary Magdalene’s longest night? I’m willing to bet she didn’t get much sleep that night. These last few days had not gone the way she thought they would. Then, just like me maneuvering my van along dark winding roads, she was walking dark paths going from the city to the tomb where Jesus had been placed. She knew what it looked like when she left it days ago, but what about now? How would she move the stone? Who would help her? Could her life get any worse? What was to become of her and the other disciples? Did anyone in the world care about them and their predicament?
So many questions. So many unknowns. Perhaps some doubt, confusion, or self-pity. All while it was dark. It was indeed her longest night.
And when she arrived, the tomb was empty. And Mary Magdalene’s life was about to change again.
Are you traveling this world in the dark? You are not alone.
Have the last few days, months, or years not gone the way you had hoped? You are not alone.
Have you lost something, or someone, you treasured? You are not alone.
Perhaps you’re waiting for answers? Wondering if someone will be there to handle the heavy stones in your life? You are not alone.
Recognize that you are never alone. There is always hope.
None of the scriptures say Jesus arose just as the rooster crowed nor do they say anything about the sun’s first rays bringing him to life in the tomb. If Mary reached the tomb WHILE IT WAS STILL DARK and Jesus was already gone from the tomb, when did he rise from the dead? While it was still dark.
God works in the dark. He did it before -- by speaking into the darkness and creating light. Now there was the resurrection of his son. God works in the dark and He is doing so for you. Have HOPE as you navigate the dark paths in your life.
If you’re reading this and need reassurance that you are not alone, please reach out to me, your church, or a friend.
If you ever doubted that God is working in the darkness of your longest night, trust that He is.
Merry Christmas.
]]>
Before social media, a card or a newsletter was how we kept up-to-date with friends and family. If nothing else, it provided a current address of where they could find us if they needed us. The ability to condense twelve months of family life onto an 8-1/2x11 piece of holiday letterhead (with proper indentions to avoid printing over a Christmas tree or Santa) became an art. Now all you have to do is search my social media profile page and you can relive the magic of the past year.
But, again this year, we caved to peer pressure and prepared a newsletter--mostly for friends and family who are not on social media. Think of it as a reward for not succumbing to the pressures of society. We throw in a few select family members just so they can add another picture to their refrigerator or the shoebox they keep on the top shelf of their most remote closet. Still, what we sent this year is only a small fraction of what we used to do twenty years ago.
One of the most difficult tasks of preparing to send cards is going through last year’s list and updating it for those who have passed away. It is bitter sweet. We grieve all over again for the loss, we think about the survivors and how different this year will be for them, and we remember sweet memories of the deceased.
So last week I drafted the 2023 edition, gained Jenni’s approval, and then let it sit for a few days—just in case something changed or we remembered some huge unforgettable moment previously omitted. A few days later, we turned off Judge Judy and turned on Pandora with Christmas music. Then it was time to battle the printer, which really wasn’t that bad this year other than trying to remember which way to insert the holiday letterhead. Yep, got it wrong. So we had to strike one person off our mailing list. If you expected to get one and did not, well, sorry. We still love you.
We used to send the envelopes through the printer after doing a mail merge of our address list. At some point in the past that felt so impersonal that we changed the font from Calibri to Lucida Handwriting for that more personal touch. But last year the printer jammed so many times that we agreed it was easier to cut a few more names (Sorry, again) and then divide the list and handwrite the envelopes. Yes, I know some people send their mailing lists to an online service which prints the envelopes for them in whatever font they choose and mails them. I’m happy for those who have done this. I only found out this week that Insta Cart delivers groceries up here on the mountain so I’m a little behind with some of the technological advances.
Instead of using a service, I chose to stop in at my local, favorite Cleveland Post Office and purchase Christmas stamps. While I peeled and stuck stamps, I had a great conversation with Stacey who runs that branch. I had been there the day before to mail a book. She asked me then if I needed anything else and I said no. This time, after buying enough sheets of stamps, she asked if I needed anything else. I explained that I only plan one day at a time so this would do me for the time being.
If you didn’t get one of our newsletters this year, I assure you it was mostly about our granddaughter Emma, then our van Wanda, my new book Wanda 2, our dog Annie, our kids, and a little about us. Try not to take it personally—I’m thrilled that Jenni and I even made it into the letter!
And have a Merry Christmas!
]]>
Stacey, a friend who teaches Eighth Grade English at Kingsway Middle School in New Jersey, invited me to participate in a recent meeting of her Writing Club. It is an after-school club that meets once or twice a month, focusing on creating some type of small writing piece. She tells me that last year the students composed poems that were submitted to a contest and four students were published! Stacey says “We play hard, and we work hard!”
On this particular day, I joined about seventeen students for their meeting. We tried connecting via a Zoom meeting but our voices were all garbled using that technology. Like all great teachers, Stacey quickly pivoted and solved the problem by going to our trusty cell phones for the session.
After a brief introduction of who I was, I spent a few minutes talking about WHY I began writing. My number one reason was that somewhere along the way I was encouraged by others. First it was my mother. Rather than just sitting in the house watching Gilligan’s Island reruns, she often had me in the veterinary office with her and she would encourage me to write poetry or even retelling a Biblical story. I shared with the students that I was first published when I was in the Fourth Grade. With my mother’s encouragement, I submitted a brief story to the San Antonio Express-News newspaper for a feature they printed about people’s pets. I wrote about some of the chickens I was raising and the story was chosen! I think I earned something like $5.00 for them printing it. I told the students I was also encouraged by several high school teachers and a college professor. Other reasons I write are to entertain readers and to leave a legacy for my children and grandchildren.
I then shared the circumstances that led to me writing the Living With Wanda book series and talked about the process of self-publishing and what it does, and does not, do for the writer. (Self-publishing is a fast and relatively easy way to get a book into print but the responsibility for editing and then marketing the publication is all on the writer.) I shared that I did not enter into this thinking I would make a million dollars but that I would create a written, humorous record of a tremendous adventure Jenni and I shared in our retirement. (According to some statistics I found online, 33% of self-published authors make less than $500 per year and sell less than 250 copies. I’m excited to be slightly above-average!)
Then I opened it up for Q&A and it was obvious they had done their homework and were interested in the topic. There were several great questions queued up such as how do I stay motivated, who do I show my work to for feedback, and have I ever had writer’s block and how did I handle it.
One student asked what tips or advice I had for them. I said they should find an author they liked and read everything that person has written. I shared that several years ago I was drawn to the writing style of Matt and Karen Smith in their book series Dear Bob and Sue which was about a couple quitting their jobs and traveling to all the National Parks. I shared that I even reached out to the Smiths for advice about publishing and they were full of encouragement and ideas—which I think many authors would be if approached respectfully.
My favorite question, and the one that later got quite a chuckle out of Jenni when I shared with her, was ‘When do you write and where do you write?’. For me, I know that I am much more creative in the mid-morning, somewhat in the afternoon, and not at all by evening. As for where I write, I explained that my wife created an office space for me. (Jenni corrected me later and said she actually created TWO office spaces for me—one upstairs and one downstairs.) But I confessed to the students that I hardly ever write in my office. I’m much more comfortable taking the laptop into the living room and sitting in my recliner or maybe at the dining room table. They seemed more amused by this revelation than Jenni is.
This was a fun experience. I told them I really wish I could have had an opportunity like it when I was their age. They seemed to be a special group of young adults and they definitely have a teacher who cares about them!
Whether it’s writing or some other activity, be an encourager to others!
]]>
What was more concerning was that we had about thirty-six pounds of semi-frozen turkeys inside, defrosting for frying and roasting in a couple days.
A refrigerator repair should never be undertaken without first having coffee. The clicking off and on continued while Jenni and I had our coffee, but did slow considerably. By the time we had finished breakfast, it was no longer an issue. (I prefer repairs like that!). We vacuumed under the front of the unit and said a prayer it would last through Thanksgiving.
It did!
We had a dozen for lunch that Thursday and put the refrigerator through a rigorous workout with moving dishes in and out, dispensing water, and the packing of leftovers. Thankfully, there was never a problem with it.
Monday after Thanksgiving began the same way as this blog—the refrigerator going off and on every few seconds. We knew from our previous inspection that a colony of dust bunnies had taken up residency on the coils and we needed to remove them, once our coffee was gone.
Our kitchen is designed in such a way that the refrigerator can only roll forward until it presses against the island. This creates enough space between the back of the refrigerator and the cubby it rolled out from for a 32-inch waist to squeeze through. Right now I’m about a 34-inch and all the turkey and pies were pushing that number upwards. But on tippy-toes and other gyrations I managed to squeeze behind the unit, remove the back panel, and start vacuuming. There was a brief guessing game as to what some crunchy items were but we couldn’t agree if they were vegetable, animal, or mineral. My cleaning was restricted by my lack of yoga flexibility and the electric cord for the unit. So I reached behind me and pulled the plug. Unplugging the refrigerator allowed me to clean deeper in the unit and clean the fan that had been spinning while it was running.
And that was the last time the compressor ever ran.
My usual ‘computer error solution’ of turning it off and on did nothing. Neither did the technique of “let’s just let it sit for a few minutes and it will kick on”. I didn’t try drinking a cup of coffee but I have serious doubts that would have worked. The lights inside still worked but the compressor and computer panel in the door were kaput.
Time of death: Monday, 2:30pm.
While Jenni emptied the freezer compartment and crammed most of it into our upright freezer, I pulled the small refrigerator out of our van Wanda and rolled it up to the house. As we emptied the refrigerator, there was a merciless assessment of condiment expiration dates and the trashcan grew heavy. While this triage was taking place, we prioritized what remained into a group that would fit in our van refrigerator for everyday use and what could be squeezed into a dorm-size refrigerator we keep in our garage. Sadly, all wine and beer fell into a category of its own which did not include immediate refrigeration. (We later returned the alcohol to the refrigerator where it managed to remain chilled for a day or two before we put it on the porch where temperatures were near freezing!).
During this time of emptying the frig, Jenni had started looking at models and sales online and I reached out to my sister who had just recently had to replace her refrigerator. Thanks to modern technology, she Face Timed us and gave us a tour of hers as well as a good review.
Turns out, Cyber Monday is good for more than just buying electronics online from Amazon. Go figure. The big box stores in town were all having one-day sales on appliances as well. We slipped on our shoes and headed out the door intending to go to the big orange box store but pulled into the blue one for a quick look. By 5:15pm we had purchased the refrigerator at the big blue box store, added a dishwasher because our current one was crapping out as well, and received not only the Cyber Monday discount but another for buying two appliances. We wished each other Happy Anniversary and Merry Christmas as we handed over the credit card. I texted my sister a picture of us in front of the floor model and she agreed that we certainly didn’t mess around! The discounts associated with Cyber Monday certainly played into the timing on making a fast decision. Delivery was scheduled for Friday.
Sebastian and his two helpers drove up on a cold, wet Friday morning. He quickly assessed the pathway and kitchen layout, asked to borrow a tape measure, and proceeded to take the front door off the hinges. It was like watching a well-coached sports team as they ran a strap under the dead unit and carried it out like it was a pillow. The new one came in the same way! Every word spoken by the leader was calm and positive as he coached and taught his helpers how to lift, pivot, and place correctly and safely. I lost track of how many times I heard him say “excelente”. I complimented him on being such a great teacher.
Now, if the UPS and FedEx delivery men haven’t helped themselves, it’s time to bring the beer and wine back in from the front porch.
]]>
On our trip to the Great Lakes, I worried a lot about Annie. She just seemed off her game the first week. When we reached Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore on Lake Michigan, she made it half way across the beach and just stopped, laying down on the sand. Over several days, she scratched like she has never done before—so much so that we stopped at a Tractor Supply Company store near Munising, MI to buy more tick and flea treatment (even though she had been treated a few days before). She was drinking a lot of water and panting during those days as well. Due to her behavior, we didn’t take her on any major hikes this trip. After a week or so like this, she returned to her normal, royal self. Maybe she was just missing home and decided to go on strike.
In the preparation I did for this trip, which wasn’t much and was another cause of anxiety, I had read a couple remarks about filling your fuel tank before leaving the eastern edge of the Michigan Upper Peninsula headed west. The posts cautioned about the lack of fuel stations. So, of course, I fixated on the fuel gauge and tried not to let the needle go below half full. This was, it turned out, ridiculous. There was always a gas station to be found as long as we were willing to pay the price. Maybe those who had written about such things only got 5 mpg in fuel efficiency compared to our 17 mpg.
Camped somewhere in the forests of Wisconsin I worried that the banjo-playing young man with a large chained dog, whose camp we used for a U-turn, would walk through the woods and find us while we slept. I’m not sure if I was concerned what harm he might do to us or if he would just play his banjo all night. And then there was the thought that a tree could fall across the road during the night, blocking our escape. (We now carry a saw larger than the one on my Swiss Army knife).
I have shared here, and in my books, how I stress over our battery power while traveling. I once resorted to plugging into an electrical outlet of a closed hospital while traveling through the Midwest. But just as much, on our first couple big trips I worried about our headlights. Moisture accumulating in the fixture was a major problem and the bulbs would stop working and then come back on a day or two later. We spent a major part of our time in Wyoming and Utah with one dim light and no brights! Being stopped by a friendly Utah Highway Patrolman did nothing to ease my concerns about the headlight situation and I knew it wasn’t practical to think we would never have to drive in the dark. Finally, before this last trip, I was able to remedy this chronic fear by replacing the entire light fixture on both the passenger and driver’s side. I did both for a fraction of what a dealer had quoted me for doing just one and it brought incredible peace of mind. We could now drive at night and actually see the road!
History has shown me that 90% of what I worry about never comes to fruition. Now, is that because my level of concern caused me to more cautious and seek out solutions? Or is it just the way things typically go?
I worry that I may never know for sure.
]]>
We had discussed the need for our passports six weeks before we left home for that trip but we weren’t going to put them in the van that long before our departure. In the end, we were several days into the trip before realizing they were still in the safe at home. On our next big trip north, to the Great Lakes, we were determined to rectify that and cross the border. We did not have a destination, or even a border crossing location, in mind. We considered Sault Ste. Marie, MI or International Falls, MN.
Ultimately, it worked best to visit Canada from Grand Portage, MN located on the North Shore of Lake Superior above Duluth, MN. A conversation with a fellow traveler somewhere in the Porcupine Mountains of western Michigan covered a lot of topics but one was his previous travels in an RV. He was now nearing 80 years-old by my estimation but in his younger retirement days he and his wife had traveled extensively. He said we really needed to see Kakabeka Falls in Ontario, Canada. (I acted like I knew what and where he was talking about.) That night I googled where Kakabeka was and discovered it wasn’t very far from the Minnesota border so we decided to cross the border in Grand Portage when we reached that area.
Three days later we camped in an open field about forty-five minutes from the Minnesota/Canadian border. We got an early start that next morning but wanted to drop a bag of trash before reaching the border. I think Grand Portage, MN had two gas stations. It was not the “grand” town I had imagined. I pulled into the first station to buy some gas and put my trash in the dumpster. The pumps were out of the lowest octane so I bought ONE GALLON of medium octane for $4.99 per gallon. I thought that was a fair trade for my refuse.
From there it took five minutes to reach the border crossing. The Canadian agent was super friendly—but aren’t all Canadians? First he greeted me in French and I gave him my best French “uhhhh” response. Then he said “Welcome to Canada!” in English. He asked where we were going so it was nice to be able to reply with a purpose and say ‘Kakabeka Falls’ rather than suggest that we were just going to wander his country aimlessly. He confirmed we were only doing a day trip and not spending the night. He didn’t even mention Annie who was sleeping on the armrest next to Jenni but he did ask if we had any alcohol. When I said yes and he asked how much, I held up my hands to indicate a six-inch bottle and said it was a pre-mixed margarita. He smiled and was about to wave us through when he stopped and asked what it said on our matching T-shirts. We were wearing our “All Who Wander Are Not Lost” shirts. He told us to have a great day. It was a very pleasant experience for our first border crossing in Wanda.
The Canadian countryside was beautiful—big barns, ripe wheat, green corn, cut alfalfa in the fields. We never saw a city over 1,000 in population. Just outside the small town of Kakabeka Falls was the provincial park of the same name. The ranger on duty there looked about 18 years-old and was, of course, very friendly. We could pay by the hour to visit, so I took the option for two hours at 6.50 CAD (or about $4.75 USD), and pulled into a parking space beyond the building. The falls were maybe fifty yards away.
The waterfall was stunning—not as large as Niagara but almost as beautiful and less than a dozen other tourists. It split in two around a rock formation just after the river flowed under a bridge before dropping 130 ft. We enjoyed it from both sides of the bank with the far side being the best. I even drove Wanda over the bridge so Jenni could get some video.
We went back to Wanda to get Annie out for a walk, and even took her to one of the overlooks for a selfie. She seemed a bit nervous as I approached the railing which Jenni totally identified with.
We took a slightly different route back to the US.
Along the way, I was fascinated by their road signs. They didn’t use words much--just pictures. I enjoy petroglyphs but I was having trouble discerning one particular yellow sign that had a jagged black image that looked like three tents pushed together with a black arrow pointing up. I started to ask Jenni what she thought it could mean.
About that time I hit a very large bump and then I understood the sign!
We were back at the US border by noon—in one of the countries. That part of Canada was on Eastern Time while Minnesota was on Central Time. The US agent was not nearly as friendly as her Canadian counterpart. First I had to stop at a machine that was more intimidating to me than a fast-food drive-up window. I surmised I was supposed to scan our passports there but nothing happened. Eventually a woman leaned out of a window and waved me forward. I asked if I did something wrong at the scanner but she ignored my question. I handed her our passports showing we were US citizens. She still asked where we were going and did we have a reservation for tonight? (I’m thinking: ‘I’m an American, does it really matter where I’m going?’ but of course did my best to come up with the name of a state park we were going to camp in that night.) Then she curtly asked ‘was this a camper with a bed and was anyone sleeping in the back?’ I replied it was just the two of us. I was not about to let her know there was a passenger with Chihuahua Mexican-heritage, without a passport, snoring on the floorboard between our seats! Annie may have lived on the streets for a while, but she could not have survived serving time in a border holding cell at this point in her privileged life. This whole exchange was done without any smiles or congeniality on the part of the border agent—not even a “welcome home” or "we've been expecting you". After promising again that no one was in the bed, she waved us through.
A few hundred yards later we pulled into the Grand Portage State Park and Visitor Center. We ate sandwiches in the parking lot, fed Annie her kibble, and then hiked a mile (round trip) to see High Falls. Had we not just visited Kakabeka we would have been highly impressed.
Before leaving Grand Portage we spent some time at a national monument that taught us about the fur trade that existed in the area with the Chippewa or Ojibjy peoples. I'm not normally a big museum fan, but this one had interesting Chippewa artifacts, jewelry, utensils, and history. Due to time constraints, we only scratched the surface of the indoor exhibits. Outside was a replica village near the lake with wigwams made of birch bark and a trading post within the stockade walls of a fort but we probably most enjoyed the warehouse where a man showed us boats once used to transport supplies and the hand tools used to make them. The largest boat, suspended from the ceiling, was 38’ x 6’ and held four tons and sixteen men. This national monument was a stop we hadn’t even planned on making, yet, it was one we could have stayed at for a couple more hours.
That night in camp we had chili with pancake-style cornbread, margaritas, and hot showers. We were now a merry van of international travelers!
(Oops! I miscalculated the number of margaritas we were carrying into Canada! Glad they didn't search us!)
As a child I remember my mother playing a radio in the kitchen on school day mornings. It was usually WOAI out of San Antonio, TX which was mostly news but sometimes she played music. I can distinctly remember the songs “I was looking back to see if you were looking back to see” and “Que Sera Sera” because she would sing along.
When I was a preteen, I discovered KTSA which played “Top 40” music. I still remember it was 550 on the AM dial. You could call in requests via a TOLL-FREE phone number IF you were willing to dial eleven digits on a rotary phone and then, IF the call was answered, and IF you were willing to stay on hold for 15-50 minutes. People will say that Country music also existed at this time, but I’m not sure anyone in my family was aware of this. I was also probably in college before I realized there were FM stations available on the radio dial.
Today, Jenni and I do not even keep a radio in our house. We gave away the turntable and CD player/stereo/radio combos years ago. We still enjoy music, but we find our favorites through our television with either SiriusXM, IHeartRadio, or Pandora. I still prefer the oldies (which really means the 60s-70s and maybe early 80s); Jenni sides with Marie Osmond and is a “little bit Country”.
Our vehicles do not have anything fancy in regards to music. Both use the factory-supplied equipment. In the car, we have six preset stations—two each of Country, Christian, and Oldies. In Wanda (the van), we never bothered to preset any of the radio buttons until this past year; we usually just hit the Seek button since we travel so much.
When we go on long trips, it is an unwritten rule that the driver gets final say on the genre of music. On our last trip, as we drove through Tennessee, the mountains caused stations to quickly fade in and out. Nothing will lose a station’s listening status like a staticky signal! Cruising I-75 we learned that if we hit Seek or Search we would end up with a Country station 99.999% of the time. So Tennessee belonged to Jenni. When we drove to Voyageurs National Park near International Falls, MN ‘mashing’ the Seek button produced TWO stations in the entire range of the FM dial—Religious Talk and News. That lasted almost an hour!
Consequently, sometimes I will drive for hours with the radio off. Or as I get near my destination, I most certainly turn the radio volume down so I can see better. I learned this from my father, but I don’t think I’m the only one who does it.
But when we crossed into Canada for the first time in our lives (yay!) we were surprised by a highway sign the Canadian government had erected that declared “Canada Radio Stations” and listed three different stations. We wondered if that was all they had. But we appreciated the suggestions, turned on the radio, and tuned to the only station number we could remember having seen at 90 km/hour. (I was so consumed converting miles per hour to kilometers that I didn’t have any more room for processing numbers!). The station was “Adult Hits” and for the next half hour provided a backdrop to our scenic drive to Kakabeka Falls. We didn’t know any of the songs but they were pleasant to our ears so we left the station alone. In fact, we enjoyed the category “Adult Hits” so much that we sought it out more throughout the remainder of our trip. We learned there can be a wide range of music in that category.
On our return home, we were listening to a station as we drove through Kentucky. The man giving the weather sounded like they had just pulled him from Butcher Holler but when the two DJs started talking we couldn’t understand a word they were saying. I think we would have been better off with a French-Canadian station at that point!
When we approached the entry station, the gentleman’s ‘greeting’ made me feel as if I had done something wrong. He then wanted to charge us an entry fee but I pointed out that we had a park pass decal on our windshield--in the lower right on the passenger side--exactly where the ranger at the park where we purchased it the day before told us to place it. (Throughout our visits to Michigan state parks, it became obvious that the rangers had no say so or consensus in the placement of this decal because none of them could ever see it and we spent two weeks apologizing). I was not about to ask this man any questions, and he did not have a map, so I drove straight into a parking lot that my phone map said was the start of the trail to the lighthouse.
But then we saw another parking lot between us and the beach so we moved over to the far end of it, thinking it placed us nearest the lighthouse. Up to this point we had now made at least two errors in judgment and we were just getting started.
Our plan was to walk the shoreline to the Big Sable Point Lighthouse. The online map I consulted offered a confusing trail, which began in a campground somewhere behind us. No, we were still going with our idea to walk the shoreline. I grabbed a light backpack to carry the Nikon camera. We debated going barefoot since it was going to be a walk on the sand but ultimately we each grabbed some waterproof shoes and tossed them in the backpack. We situated Annie in the van and we headed out, not even sure how far we were going. (Five mistakes up to this point if you are counting.)
Walking the shoreline was not always easy. Sometimes the sand was firm, sometimes not. We distracted ourselves by looking for sea glass, but that was a rare find. We thought we caught a glimpse of the lighthouse one time and assumed we would see it ‘just around the bend’. That bend stretched into a couple more bends and still no lighthouse. Eventually we saw what looked like a heavily traveled path through the sand dunes so I climbed to the top and finally got a visual of the lighthouse—at least a mile away! I motioned for Jenni to climb the path through the sand dunes because we would be able to join everyone else on a more legitimate trail. That trail was indeed a sandy road but only park personnel could drive on it. So we walked, in our water shoes.
We had failed to pack water (or snacks) and we were wearing the wrong kind of shoes for a hike like this. We didn’t have a map, but at least we knew where we were going now. (Seven mistakes up to this point!) At some point Jenni knew she was holding me back and urged me to go ahead. Otherwise, she reasoned, she would just have to sit and watch me take pictures once we got there.
The lighthouse was indeed photogenic. It is a 112-foot black-and-white striped structure originally built in 1867 giving sailors a white light to follow from as far as 19 miles away. It was the last Michigan lighthouse to be electrified in 1949. I had most of the photos I wanted by the time Jenni reached me.
After a rest, we shook the sand out of our shoes and started back via the road. There were several benches along the way we could use to rest, or shake more sand out of our shoes. Eventually we reached the park’s campground. We still had to cross it and the first parking lot I entered before we could get to the beach-side parking lot where Annie and Wanda were waiting for us.
When we were done, we calculated that we had gone four miles in two and a half hours in the wrong shoes and without water. We were not rookies at hiking but we sure felt like it at that point.
Was it worth it?
Yeah, you betcha!
We reasoned after a hike like that we deserved cheeseburgers and ice cream, so we headed to Manastee and found just what we needed.
Our feet were sore and we were tired, so we decided to shorten our drive that day. We made it to Inspiration Point, an overlook parking lot, and stopped for the night. Somehow we managed enough strength (and avoided leg cramps) to climb 125 steps to a viewing platform.
The views were truly inspiring. It had been a great day.
We did just that recently and spent a couple days driving the Blue Ridge Parkway from Asheville north to the Linn Cove Viaduct (about 80 miles). As free and relaxing as that may sound, an impromptu trip can be quite stressful. Where are we going to go? Where will we sleep? How much are we hiking? What do you want for supper? (That last one is stressful EVERY day!).
Jenni found a decent looking boondocking spot on the northern end of our planned route and that seemed to relax us enough. That Monday night we loaded a change of clothes, a couple meals for us and kibble for Annie into the van so we would be ready to leave Tuesday morning. (That really got Annie excited!) As we were walking out the door that morning, I commented that I wanted to take my hooded heavy jacket “just in case” so we each grabbed one and then hit the road.
Our first stop was the Folk Life Center on the Blue Ridge Parkway near Asheville. It is a great stop to see incredible crafts like quilts, pottery, wood-carvings, etc. made by local artisans. (I’m not talking craft show/flea market type stuff—these are true works of art). While there, we were able to get road information from a park ranger. The Parkway was currently closed due to snow (in the middle of October!) where we wanted to spend most of our time. She said it could open up if temperatures warmed up enough so we decided to risk it and keep driving.
We said we would stop at just one overlook but that’s like eating one potato chip. I found myself pulling into each one that offered a view. The leaves in this lower elevation area were just beginning to change colors. I have a favorite tree on the Parkway at the Craggy Dome Overlook and it was my goal to get there. Fortunately, the road was now open where it had previously been blocked off a quarter mile before the parking lot I needed. But as we passed through a tunnel, the scenery changed from a foggy fall day to a winter wonderland! There was significant snow and icicles all around us, but melting quickly. We pulled into the parking lot and put on those heavy jackets we had thrown in at the last minute. I took Annie for a quick walk but there was no ‘child-like reaction’ from her when she saw the snow. She turned a small patch yellow and headed back to the van.
So while Annie snored under a blanket, Jenni and I hiked the Craggy Pinnacle Trail. It starts in a tunnel of rhododendron which quickly leads to my favorite tree. If a tree can show wisdom, this one is a genius. A friend from another part of the state saw my picture of it and declared she wanted to pray and meditate under it! Once we had communed with this icon of the Parkway, we continued up the snowy trail. We were walking mostly in slush but the scenery on each side was blanketed in white. The entire trail is 0.7 miles but does involve significant elevation change. Once we reached the pinnacle, we were treated to an interior view of a cloud. We could hear vehicles, and voices, far below but saw nothing ten feet beyond the rock retaining walls. The hike down was a bit more perilous than the one up due to the slush and having to step down from rock to rock in many places.
A few minutes north on the Parkway, the snow had melted and we were back enjoying fall foliage with even brighter colors than before. Early in the afternoon, we both agreed that it felt like we had hit a wall and needed to think about finding a place to camp closer than our previously planned site. Jenni consulted her phone app and found a road along the Linville Gorge Wilderness area that seemed to offer numerous sites. (Overnight parking is not allowed on the Blue Ridge Parkway so we were having to consider side roads). We exited the Parkway and took Old North Carolina 105—‘OLD’ being key here.
It was a dirt road with a few boulders embedded in it. It was very wide but that didn’t matter when ruts and bumps caused all the vehicles to try using the same narrow path around such obstacles. Our intended campsite was seven miles down this road and about forty-five minutes later we arrived! As with so many of our camping sites, we got lucky. Someone had obviously just left it because there was ice poured out from an ice chest still visible on the ground. The site offered a view of the Linville Gorge and North Carolina’s Table Rock across the gorge. Jenni made us some hot chocolate, we gathered some firewood, and had a campfire that evening as we watched the sunlight move across the ridge.
Oddly enough, this was the first campfire we could remember building in three years of traveling in Wanda. We are not fans of smelling like smoke. But we reasoned that we could endure it until we were home the next day. The warmth of the fire felt wonderful and we truly enjoyed sitting around it. That night we stripped all our clothing and put it in a garbage bag to try to contain the smell! (Which means I hiked in shorts the next day even though it was 46 degrees!). Of course, my eyes burned just smelling my own hair on my pillow that night! We were both asleep by nine o’clock that night.
I woke up during the night and as soon as I looked at my phone to see that it was 12:30 AM, Annie crawled over to tell me a secret. She was thirsty and when I put her on the floor she drank a considerable amount of water before I put her back in bed. She immediately fell asleep and began snoring. An hour later, Annie was still snoring and I was still awake—as was Jenni. I asked Jenni to please do something about ‘that dog’ laying beside her. Even by stroking Annie’s nose, she couldn’t get her to stop! It all made for a very long night.
The next morning we had to decide where we were going. We had traveled seven miles on a rough road to get where we were. We could continue another seven (not knowing its condition) to reach pavement or we could go back the way we had come. I reasoned that if we continued down the road we would just go home and I wasn’t ready for that so I convinced Jenni I could drive slow enough back the way we came and get us to the Blue Ridge Parkway again. In addition to potholes along the road, we had to weave around dozens of trucks belonging to hunters with dogs. I offered to stop and ask what they were hunting but Jenni wasn’t that interested. (I assumed bear so it may have been better not to know for sure). Just before reaching a paved road, we found the parking lot for Linville Falls and took a short hike to enjoy that scenery for the first time in several years. Then we got back on the Parkway.
Our next, and final, destination was the Linn Cove Viaduct. The Viaduct was the last section of the Blue Ridge Parkway to be completed and winds around Grandfather Mountain. It is an engineering marvel the way it intertwines with the mountainside and offers beautiful views as well as being a focal point of those same views. It was swarming with people like a disturbed fire ant bed. But for the first time in all our trips there, the parking lot to the Visitor Center was not locked. The Visitor Center itself has been closed for years but being able to use the parking lot allowed us to easily reach a trail that goes under the viaduct and offers unique glimpses of the highway and fall scenery. Jenni had already told me I was only getting one hike out of her this day, and I had used that for the Linville Falls hike. But what started as a gentle asphalt pathway fooled her into a second “walk”. After 800 ft it turned to rock scrambling and imitating a mountain goat, but we made it to some huge boulders under the viaduct for a unique perspective. By asking fellow hikers “is it worth it?” we decided not to go any farther. It was obvious to us that the age of the hiker affected the response we received--those closer to our own hair color gave an emphatic “meh” so we did not feel the need to press forward. After that, and lunch, we headed the two-plus hours home.
Of course, we did have to pull over at a couple more overlooks before we left the Parkway for good!
After being away for several weeks, very simple things can remind us that we are home again.
For example, toilet paper.
When we travel in our van Wanda, we travel with our own toilet and accoutrements. That means “home quality” toilet paper wherever we go. But now that the panic of the pandemic has subsided, we have taken to using other facilities as well. On the last trip I was reminded of the poor quality of toilet paper in state parks. A friend who once traveled to Russia described their toilet paper as “wax paper at best”. I would say that most state parks use a Russian supplier who leans more towards tissue paper quality. And even though they are separate entities, it didn’t matter if we were in Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, or Minnesota—it was all the same with the exception of one Minnesota campground’s shower house. They must have run out of the government-issued paper and sent Bob-the-Ranger to Dollar General for an emergency restocking because I actually found their rolls to have a textured pattern to them! (But still only Dollar General quality).
Yes, toilet paper was a great reminder we were home. So was the height of the grass in the yard! I had scalped it a couple days before leaving, but some well-timed rains while we were gone had encouraged a surge in growth. The morning we returned, I donned the grungy jeans and attacked the crabgrass that had now gone to seed. The grass portion of our yard is small enough that we maintain it with a weed eater but that doesn’t mean I couldn’t have baled hay.
Another simple reminder we were home came following the weed eating when I took a shower. If I drop the bar of soap in my own shower I don’t feel grossed out and compelled to unwrap another bar like when we travel. It was also nice not having to wear flip flops or balance myself on one leg like a flamingo as I dried off.
When I’m home, I generally don’t find it necessary to sniff my clothes before putting them on.
Sleeping in a king-size bed was a nice reminder. With the dog in her crate for the night, we did not have to worry about 2AM wake-ups as she moves around the bed looking for body heat or performs a 30-minute licking session on one foot.
I let the water run the entire time I washed my hands. I know, extravagant! I also used more than two ounces to brush my teeth.
Our meals at home contain more vegetables than most we eat on the road.
But, of course, the biggest reminder we were back home was that we got to snuggle with our granddaughter two days in a row upon our return. We had managed to do one FaceTime session with her and our daughter-in-love while we were in Marquette, MI. It satisfied our need to see and hear her as she played with her toys but it just wasn’t the same as touching her. This was our first extended trip since she came into our lives and it was tough being away from her that long.
And before you suggest a solution, Wanda is only a two-seater.
While driving through the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, we were treated on three or four occasions to pairs of white swans living in small lakes or beaver ponds, but one time we did a double take when we saw a flock of pink plastic flamingoes on a pond in the middle of nowhere!
]]>
Signs we don’t see in the South:
Signs we might see in the South:
Favorite Store Name: Objects to Crave
Please note that it is a requirement to read all road signs with a Southern Redneck accent. It enhances the humorous aspect of the signage. Trust me. Try it.
We found that Michigan did not like to repeat the highway speed limit. If you missed the sign leaving one town, you may not see another for hours. On the other hand, the state spent their entire sign budget on “Pass With Care/No Passing” signs as they tended to post one of these every time the yellow stripes changed.
Favorite vanity plates:
If you see an oncoming vehicle with only one headlight, it’s a ProMaster Van. Guaranteed.
If there was a war on poison ivy, Indiana lost.
While driving through the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, we were treated on three or four occasions to pairs of white swans living in small lakes or beaver ponds, but one time we did a double take when we saw a flock of pink plastic flamingoes on a pond in the middle of nowhere!
Twice we passed a sad sight where some guinea fowl had been killed by the highway traffic and the survivors were standing around their dead in mourning.
Winning the category for 'what the heck was that?' was a yard right on Hwy 61 north of Duluth, MN near Grand Portage, MN. The first time we came upon it, I could not comprehend what I was seeing. So on our return the next day I was prepared and pulled over so we could absorb it more fully. It was probably 100 yards of driftwood, rocks, gnomes, mirrors, ceramic animals, etc. What was hard to comprehend, quickly turned into what we considered an art installation!
Favorite quote of the trip, again spoken with a redneck accent, goes to Jenni while traveling a very remote portion of Michigan:
“We are in God’s country now, where they don’t let the devil’s internet shine down.”
On our recent trip to the Great Lakes, we entered into Culver Country. Culver’s is a Wisconsin-based frozen-custard-and-more fast-food franchise founded in 1984. They do have stores in twenty-six states but this was our first time ever to visit one. (We also visited our first White Castle’s franchise on this trip but Jenni said we should never mention that again.)
It was only our third night on the road in our van Wanda and we were spending the night in St. Joseph, Michigan. We had spent the afternoon and sunset at a city park that overlooked Lake Michigan but thought it might have too much traffic for sleeping so we drove into the old part of town to check out some other possibilities. It turned out they involved parking under a bridge and it just seemed a little to hinky for me, especially when one of the cars already parked there looked like they were on the way to the recycling center and had packed a year’s worth of plastic in the back seat. I was glad Jenni saw it the same way, so we agreed to return to the city overlook park for the night.
While driving around, I expressed a desire for ice cream. Jenni did a quick online search and said there were five options, four of which closing in three minutes. That left a Culver’s a few miles away in Stevensville. We made the drive and pulled into the parking lot. What ensued was a drive-thru experience neither of us had ever anticipated.
The arrows on the asphalt, as well as orange traffic cones, directed us to the back of the parking lot where there were two little booths about the size you would expect when checking out of an airport car rental lot. A quick check of the clearance height said we had six inches to spare so I pulled up to the open booth. A friendly young man named Michael greeted us with a warm smile. He said he was concerned about our height but I told him if they measured correctly, we would be okay. Besides, we were practically in our pajamas at that point and would NOT be going inside. When he asked for our order we said we needed a minute because we had never been to a Culver’s before. That was like flipping on a switch!
Michael got really excited by that news. He told us to ignore the confusing menu that was posted at the drive-thru and started to recite his favorite entrees. We cut him off in the middle of Reuben Sandwich and said we were only there for the custard. If it was possible for Michael to be even more genuinely excited, he seemed to turn it up a couple notches! He disclosed that he had spent four years in culinary school and his specialty was desserts. I had no reason to doubt his word. We asked what was good and stopped him at the first two: Dark Chocolate custard with Peanut Butter and Butterfinger Crunch for Jenni and a Salted Caramel Turtle swirled with creamy Vanilla custard loaded with toasted pecans for me. When he correctly pronounced “puh-kans” I knew I had my selection and I complimented him on his linguistic skills. He said “as if there were any other way to pronounce ‘pecans’. (Was he working for tips now?!).
As we chit-chatted about where we were traveling, he enlightened us about the upcoming Labor Day bridge walk on the Mackinac Bridge. This was unexpected news to us so we appreciated the heads-up. He encouraged us to join him and his grandpa on the walk! I hated to drive away from Michael—he was such a pleasure to interact with!
After we drove to the pick-up window we were asked to park along the curb and I suspect someone inside forgot our order because they were on the ‘soft’ side when they finally reached us, but it didn’t stop us from killing each one as we drove back to the overlook parking lot for the night.
Toward the end of our trip, we had another opportunity to eat at a Culver’s in Menomonie, Wisconsin. Truthfully, we really wanted to spend the night in Menomonie just because it was so fun to say (and we said it a lot), but we couldn’t find a suitable spot, so we opted to grab dinner and drive farther that night. The joint was packed with college students, football players, and young families; the drive-thru wrapped around the parking lot. The young lady, and frankly all the workers, were what we refer to in the south as 'Chick-fil-A' friendly. Our burger and salad were delicious and we had our first Wisconsin cheese curds. The curds tasted a lot like mozzarella sticks but, if nothing else, they whet our appetite to taste more while we crossed the Dairy State. (Speaking of which, we saw LOTS of old barns but not a single Holstein cow across the entire state).
After we ate our dinner, we bought a pint of the Dark Chocolate with Butterfinger Crunch custard to go.
With a freezer in Wanda, we managed to stretch that pint over the next two days.
We’re disciplined like that.
Five days and 1,000 miles into the trip we found ourselves parked on a high bluff near Arcadia, Michigan overlooking Lake Michigan. It was a sunny afternoon and we were tired of driving for the day. We set out our solar panels (which always seems to draw comments from other travelers), opened the back doors to give us a view of the lake, and enjoyed a beautiful afternoon at what some people call Inspiration Point. One of the many people who stopped to chat was Motorcycle Man. He claimed to be a van enthusiast but was traveling alone by motorcycle. We shared where we were headed over the next couple days (because we didn’t plan much farther ahead than that) and he had plenty of recommendations of roads to take and things to see including the Tunnel of Trees on M119 near Petoskey. The next day we drove his ‘tunnel’ and realized the road was a little too narrow to feel comfortable meeting oncoming traffic while traveling in a van. We passed on his recommendation for a great Polish restaurant since we couldn’t remember the name and it wasn’t mealtime.
The next day (I think) we were looking for a boondocking spot on the shore of Lake Superior. We had a lead on a great looking spot but what we were actually seeing didn't match the pictures. We gave in and backed into a spot 15 yards from the shore, a few spaces from The Toyhaulers. They were a couple with a detachable camper and two motorcycles. He was grilling thick steaks over a campfire on the beach. I wasn’t sure if they would appreciate us camping near them but once we spoke they were super friendly, as was their young Doberman pup much to Annie’s irritation. Once they knew which direction we were headed, they were full of suggestions as they had traveled this area many times. They left on motorcycles for a sunset ride and returned after we had gone to bed. I felt bad the next morning when our smoke alarm was activated, TWICE, while cooking bacon and then an errant elbow blew the van’s horn just before we pulled out.
In Munising we met The Boat People. Annie and Jim were seated in front of us on a boat cruise along Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. We had a great time visiting with them while we ooohed and ahhed over the beauty of the shoreline. After telling them some about our trip, one asked “Do you carry?” in reference to our safety in the van. I hesitated and then answered “only a Chihuahua and bear spray”! The time spent with them was pleasant and helped me forget that I tend to get sick on boats. One of their recommendations that panned out a few days later was The Jam Pot, a bakery/jelly store run by a group of monks on the Keweenaw Peninsula.
The Laundry People in Munising were very helpful. They told us which machines didn’t work and which ones had just finished a load so they were safe to use. It helps to have fellow travelers looking out for you.
Camped on the shore of Lake Michigamme, we had gone to bed as the only campers in the state forest campground. In the morning, there were two others—one who let four large dogs roam freely and then the one I talked to. While Jenni enjoyed some alone time in the van that morning, Annie and I stepped out for a little walk. The man in the Ford Transit van came out and we struck up a conversation. I was as mesmerized by his Minnesota accent as he may have been by my southern drawl. (Asking ‘where y’all headed?’ tends to indicate I ain’t from around there). We mainly talked about our vans and waterfalls. I will confess I did not understand everything he said but I had fun listening! We had each been to Tahquamenon Falls in the past couple days and he was headed to Bond Falls next to meet up with some friends. I made note of that one and several days later when we reached it I was so glad I had!
A day in the Porcupine Mountain Wilderness Area of western Michigan produced a plethora of friendly folks. From the Wisconsin retirees we chatted with while watching a man set up a manual typewriter and begin tapping away on his next novel using Lake of the Clouds as his inspiration, to the young lady who promised “I know what I’m doing” as she took our photo, to Tom and Annie. We first met the latter on a steep trail to Summit Peak and an observation tower. We were finding the air hard to breath on our way up when a couple, with close to twenty years on us, stopped to offer us encouragement on their descent. I thought that was pretty easy for them to do on the way down! After a couple minutes rest, we each went our different directions. After Jenni and I reached the summit and returned to the parking lot, we saw that this same couple was just finishing their lunch at a picnic table right beside Wanda. They said they were wondering what the inside of the van was like, so we opened it up and gave them a tour. When we introduced our Chihuahua Annie to them, the woman was thrilled to have finally met a dog with her name! She was a quilter, so you can imagine hers and Jenni’s conversation. Tom was a retired science teacher who said he was getting close to as many years retired as he had taught and he felt kind of guilty about that. I told him it sounded like something to be proud of! We both agreed we did not miss our work life one bit. Throughout the next week I found myself drawing upon my conversation with Tom several times, but the greatest advice from him was to visit Kakabeka Falls in Canada while we were in Grand Portage, MN. One thing the four of us discussed was maneuvering the roads. Neither of them owned a cell phone so lack of cell signal wasn’t a concern. Annie (the Lady) said that someone had been talking to her about their GPS system and asked what she used. Annie replied, “I don’t use G-P-S, I use M-A-P-S.” She was a character and we surely would have been great friends if they were on Facebook. Or had a cell phone for that matter.
And then there were fellow van dwellers Matt and Katie, or the @TrailVagabonds and @VagabondMutts on Instagram. We first became aware of them when we were building Wanda at the start of the pandemic. Matt was a tremendous help in answering our questions about construction and electrical work. He is a self-taught wiz at campervan build-outs and home remodeling. (I think he likes to begin remodeling jobs a month before they sell each house. 😉) We met Matt in person when we drove through Salt Lake City two years ago where we camped at his curb and ate pizza together. Katie, who is a veterinarian, has a true heart for sled dogs and underdogs. She was off helping with Iditarod training when we were in Utah so this was our first chance to meet her face to face. Through Instagram messaging we knew we were all converging on Ely, MN at about the same time so we made plans to meet in town for dinner and great conversation. Every time I meet Matt, I tend to find a local beer I enjoy so this time I bought a 12-pack before we left town the next morning! Even though Jenni and I are old enough to be their parents, the commonality of vanlife and love of dogs just made us feel like good friends. We look forward to our paths crossing again.
This trip was a great reminder to me to open up and talk with fellow travelers more. There are some really interesting folks out there if you just give them a chance.
You meet the nicest people on the road. Hopefully, I’m one of them!
First, there’s the lack of reliable internet and no WiFi. You would think that would be great for ‘going off grid’ (and it is) but it makes it pretty much impossible to keep in touch with family or Google how to pronounce the town Ontonagon. I told Jenni I felt like the character Stands With Fist in the movie Dancing With Wolves trying to say my first words in English!
I thought about attaching several pictures but 45 minutes later the round arrow thingy was still circling. So, go to my Facebook account or the van’s Instagram (WandaCanWander) for photos!
Then there’s the lack of time since we’re driving so much.
But the biggest hindrance is typing a blog on an iPhone. It just ain’t happening!
I will catch up with y’all later!
]]>
So recently it was time for an oil change in our Honda Civic. We planned to drive it to the beach in a few days so we actually decided to change the oil with a few miles to spare.
Unlike Wanda who gets special care at our favorite dealer in Brevard, we take the Civic to Wal-Mart. No, we don’t love our “children” equally. When I arrived at the auto-service garage bays, there appeared to be a couple cars ahead of me. I asked the technician how long to expect and he said an hour to hour-and-a-half. I figured Jenni and I could shop that long in the store so I handed over the keys.
At the end of the hour-and-a-half, we paid for our groceries and pushed the cart to the back of the store. Our car was now next in line. I walked out to it and got a freezer bag with ice packs (when you live out in the sticks like us, you come to town prepared) and we transferred all our cold products to the insulated bag.
That’s when the play-by-play commentary began on our car.
Another customer, obviously juiced up on caffeine or something else, asked which car was ours and how long we had been waiting. When I told him, he immediately asked if I had to replace the O2 sensor (or something like that) and I replied no. So he told me how easy it was to reach. Good to know. I wanted to say I had replaced my own flux capacitor but thought twice about engaging him in meaningful dialogue. He then announced that my car had been moved up in line. If I had turned my head a quarter turn and looked out the window I would have known this myself. I learned of all the truck models he had owned in his lifetime and whose oil he had changed on his own. My constant phone scrolling did nothing to slow him down. In fact, he spent a few minutes talking about how much he does not like his own phone and could live without it.
Just after my new friend announced that they were now draining the oil from my car, he tried to bait me into a conversation on people not wanting to return to work. It was a Friday morning and I wondered why HE was not working. He talked somewhat disparagingly of the Wal-Mart employees and I said we had always been satisfied with their work. After providing another progress report (the oil was now dripping and he hoped they remembered the drain plug—to which I replied that I trusted them to do the job right), he received a phone call and I enjoyed a brief reprieve. When he hung up he lamented about the person who called speaking with a foreign accent. I thought that their accent had not prevented him from carrying on a conversation but I did nothing to engage him. He now reported that my car was ready.
Eventually the paperwork caught up to me and I could escape. Throughout this entire painful period, my wife sat across from me in the waiting room and did not say a word.
She is so wise.
Through the generosity of friends, Jenni and I were invited to spend a few days at Edisto Beach, SC. We were really there for the chance to catch up with our friends, but on our first evening walk along the beach they pointed out several areas at the edge of the sand dunes that were staked off and some that had black erosion fencing stretching from them to the beach. We learned that this was all part of protecting the nests of loggerhead turtles.
A legion of highly trained volunteers, affectionately referred to as the Turtle People in our conversations that week, patrol and protect the beach all in the name of encouraging the propagation of the species. I understood that they were granted certain powers, such as the right to knock on your door to remind you “lights out” if your house lights were too bright and, thus, disorienting to newly hatched turtles. They also monitored any holes that were dug in the sand since a baby turtle could get trapped. Feeding seagulls is discouraged for obvious reasons.
A visit to the Edisto Beach State Park Environmental Learning Center provided some startling facts. (At least startling to someone who had no clue about the life of a loggerhead). Careful identification and record keeping revealed that some females lay multiple nests in a summer. The Center had numbers showing at least three particular turtles who had each dug THREE nests in the same month, laying over a hundred eggs each time!
A nest of eggs takes about sixty days to incubate and hatch. The hatchlings emerge at night in what is referred to as a “boil”. The sand looks like it is boiling as a hundred little turtles crawl out and head to the ocean. We were not able to witness a “boil” while we were there, but I did get to see what happens next.
The Turtle People know when a nest has hatched. Four days later a volunteer digs out the nest. They take a careful count of hatched and unhatched eggs. Often they will find one or two stragglers who have been languishing in the hole, having missed the big night.
On this particular morning, just after 6:30 am, the volunteer found one surviving straggler in a nest that had hatched earlier in the week. He was #104. She placed the little one in a bucket while she carefully counted eggs. There were the 104 that hatched and 25 that did not. When she was done, she placed all the eggs back in the hole and covered it. She then carried the bucket closer to the ocean. I was surprised the tardy hatchling wasn’t made to crawl the entire way but I think he was already exhausted. When she poured him out of the bucket, he turned back toward the nest. With gloves on, she redirected him and, again, he turned away from the ocean. At that point, she pulled her phone from her pocket and turned on the flashlight. Instantly the little guy began following the light reflecting on the sand and made his way to the ocean!
As the waves enveloped him, he began to swim. For a minute or two we could see his head occasionally pop up for air and then he would be gone again. And then we didn’t see him anymore.
Experts believe hatchlings may spend a decade in the ocean before returning as juveniles to forage near coastlines. A female may be 35 years-old before she is considered mature and returns to the same beach to lay her eggs.
If the opportunity ever avails itself, I highly recommend watching an event like this—even if coffee has to wait until later.
As you make plans to attend them. While you are in the middle of them. And even in the middle of the night long after the funeral is over.
]]>As you make plans to attend them. While you are in the middle of them. And even in the middle of the night long after the funeral is over. They make you think.
Jenni and I attended the funeral of her aunt this week in the Low Country. For those who don’t know the geography of South Carolina, the Low Country (in my mind) is what is below I-95 as it cuts its way across the entire state. It is made up of big oak trees, swamps, and people who talk so fast and differently that I generally have trouble understanding them. I often look to Jenni as my translator.
It was a four-hour drive, so there was plenty of time for thinking on the trip. The first requirement on a trip like this is a discussion of the last time we made this trip—that can sometimes take a good hour because there are always many side thoughts to go along with it. In this case, our “last time we drove this road” had just been in late February when we camped in several state parks. On that trip we worked in an afternoon visit with Jenni’s Aunt Ann and some of her family and for that we were now very thankful.
Aunt Ann was my mother-in-law’s sister-in-law. But that title is too cold and impersonal to accurately describe her, much less their relationship. The “in-law” would make you think it was a legal formality and there wasn’t a connection, but the truth is, short of a DNA connection, they could not have been any closer. Ann already had ten siblings, but my mother-in-law was a bonus sister to her and that is how they treated and loved each other.
During her funeral service the preacher made a simple little comment (preachers are good like that) about the way Ann was known for helping people and it opened a floodgate of thoughts and memories but one that dominated my mind was how good she was at sitting. She sat with people. When you stopped at her house, she sat with you. She talked and asked questions. She brought up times spent together and adventures shared (like when she and my mother-in-law drove from SC to where we lived in San Antonio—and she shopped and shopped until every member of her family had the perfect gift). But she did her best work when she sat with people in the hospital. When my father-in-law spent almost a month in an Atlanta hospital before he died; she sat with the family for most of that month. When my mother-in-law had an aortic blockage removed Ann not only sat with her but we credit her with saving my mother-in-law’s life when she recognized a medical emergency in the middle of the night. Thoughts come faster than words so I don’t think I missed much of the preacher’s message as I recalled those memories. I also thought how a good funeral, at least the Baptist ones, makes you think about your own relationship with God.
During the service, I thought about music. Ann’s daughter played the piano for the service and I’m not talking one song. This was full-blown prelude, three hymns, two solos, and postlude. And her mama smiled. But it made me think what songs would I want played at my funeral. A few years ago a friend from my church put together his own funeral playlist which included Dilly Dilly (remember that Bud Light advertising campaign several years ago?). It was certainly a first for our church. I thought Hymn of Promise and Here I Am, Lord might be more appropriate for my funeral. I ought to make a list, I thought.
At the graveside, the preacher reminded the people of Ann’s dislike of facial hair. She would often tell men sporting a beard they were ugly and offer to buy them a razor. And then the preacher wondered about her first time meeting Jesus and what she may have said about his facial hair and, through tears, we all laughed. That was a sweet thought.
The thoughts that come after a funeral come faster. They come in the middle of the night like a freight train. To get the full effect, you really need to try reading this next part as quickly as you can, in one breath, and just forgive me for any lack of proper transition. Ready? Inhale. Here goes:
I thought I would want you to know that Ann made mine and Jenni’s wedding cake and drove it four hours in the trunk of her car, resting on egg foam, before she assembled and iced the multiple layers at the church. It was the best pound cake you ever tasted, but hers always were.
She taught me the use of the phrase "to be sure not" and how to use it in a conversation such as when we told her we camp in an old plumbing van and she said "To be sure not"!
Just a few weeks ago she said she didn’t want any fuss for her 87th birthday but then said she might be mad if they didn’t make a fuss. I think Alzheimers is cruel.
They say she didn't want a fuss made over her funeral. She tried handling that by asking God to shut off the electricity in town for half an hour during the visitation the night before the service.
I thought about how for years she always asked me how my parents we doing even though she had only met them once. She told me she liked my mom and thought they could have been good friends. I don’t know how that mansion in heaven works with all those different rooms but somehow I think they might end up neighbors.
I thought about how she had three grown children but there would be other babies already waiting for her and crawling in her lap for a long-awaited cuddle. I thought about her eldest son who was the funeral director but had to allow himself to be on the receiving end of comfort at this time and hoped he would. And about another son who couldn’t attend because of illness and that made me feel sorry for him and recall my own father’s funeral and how COVID cheated my family and so many others across this world from being together for life-ending celebrations. I thought about speaking at my own mother’s funeral and how some people tried to persuade me it was risky but here Ann’s daughter played the piano for an entire service. I thought about the grief these three and their families would feel in the coming days and my heart broke for them.
And when I woke up, most of the thoughts I had were gone, and what you just read was all I had left. I felt disappointed because there were some really good thoughts that were now gone with the morning light.
But the best thought I had that morning was a reminder that, for Believers, the worst thing is never the last thing.
Rest in Peace, Ann Cooke.
With much less trepidation than the first time around, I published a second book this week. “Living With Wanda 2: Campervan Adventures Continue” is now available on Amazon as a Kindle eBook or in paperback.
There seemed to be much fanfare with publishing my first book “Living With Wanda: Adventures in a Campervan” last year. After days of previewing the draft, Jenni and I then spent hours selecting the cover photo and, worse yet, the color scheme for the cover. I was so nervous pressing the “publish” button that I actually mashed it (that’s a Southern technical term for 'pressed') before I intended to do so! If I scrolled back through thousands of pictures on my phone I could show you that the atmosphere was electrifying and we were all smiles!
For book #2, the process was all a bit less theatrical. Even though I had read my draft forty times as a Word document, I still made some edits when I exported it to a Kindle formatted file. But this time around I did all the previewing in a single day. I already had the cover photo in mind from a trip to the Blue Ridge Parkway last fall (and the confirmation from several Facebook friends back then that it would be a good image on the cover). Rather than Jenni sitting beside me and us trying seventy-two different shades of blue, and fifteen fonts, I selected an online template that looked decent, chose a color scheme that seemed to compliment my photo, and tried two fonts before selecting one. Jenni looked over my shoulder when I was through and said “yeah, that looks good” and went back to the book she was reading. And BOOM! It was time to move on to writing the book jacket and wrapping up this project. There were no photos of me pressing ‘publish’ like before; I simply worked it into a tough Wednesday morning routine between ‘rassling’ matches with an 8-month-old.
But don’t get me wrong, just because it was much easier doing the final touches doesn’t mean considerable time didn’t go into the writing, selecting stories, and reminiscing of great moments. During one of Jenni’s final proofreading and critiquing passes through the book she remarked, “You know, it’s bad when I read something you wrote and I don’t remember it or I ask myself ‘Did that really happen? Where was I?’” Doesn’t she know by now I have photographic evidence of just about every action she has ever taken?
The book itself picks up, more or less, where the first book ended. In addition to short stories surrounding everyday life with our van Wanda, I provide more detail of our big trip west through twenty-two states as well as our 4,000 mile journey to the northeast and ALMOST making it into Canada. (If you don’t know THAT story, it’s in the book!).
Some of my favorite moments captured in the book include:
As with my typical writing style, there is plenty of sarcasm, humor, and human observations spread throughout the pages as well as enough information, and inspiration, to make you want to try a few adventures yourself. It has over twice the stories as the first book and, of course, it has plenty mentions of our dog Annie!
I do hope you will give it a read and, if you like it, buy individual copies for a family of twelve. It will make a great gift for someone who is difficult to buy for--it takes the pressure off you and puts it on me, the writer! Finally, a huge thank you to all of you who purchased my first book this past year. You took a chance on me and I appreciate it. I hope you will see that I honored that trust with my second book.
Spread the word and I might just add you to my marketing department!
For the two people who have never heard of it, Amazon Prime Day is akin to Black Friday and Cyber Monday after Thanksgiving. It is an online buying frenzy with a few super bargains. But mostly it’s just another opportunity to buy something you normally wouldn’t but with a few cents-off to entice you. I find it humorous that Prime DAY was actually a two-day event this year—no shame in trying to squeeze a few more dollars out of wallets.
Well, our household succumbed to the hype and made a few purchases. Then, it was like Christmas in July when the UPS driver pulled into our driveway.
We didn’t go crazy with new appliances or anything like that. Most of our purchases reflect our conservative, practical views.
For example, we now have a 100 ft roll of screen mesh to redo our screened porch. We learned the hard way that floating embers from the chiminea will burn holes into a synthetic screen. And then there was the summer the squirrels took a liking to a particular wooden bench on the porch. They chewed through the screens to get to the bench and gnawed on the legs. (I wonder what kind of wood it was that attracted them so!) When we blocked their entry point, they just chewed another hole above the last one. This went on for weeks. I finally moved the bench to the garage and they haven’t been back since. So, new screen mesh was a practical purchase that will lead to a large project sometime in the near future.
We also found small discounts on some pet supplies for Annie and fingernail supplies for Jenni as well as disposable dinner plates for an upcoming party.
The most extravagant item (and still under $110) was for me. I bought a small device by Kardia that can produce an EKG of my heart rhythm when I pair it with my iPhone. Technology is truly incredible. I have already used it a few times to confirm an occasional irregularity in my sinus rhythm. So now, instead of Jenni having to put her ear to my chest, I can open an app on my phone, place my fingers on this little device, and quickly receive a 30-second EKG.
I may open a booth at the local farmer’s market and offer EKGs to the patrons. Who knows?
I find most baby devices to be quite perplexing and intimidating—so many clips and straps to master. We’ve come so far from my childhood when most infants rode in the arms of their mothers or, in my case, in a contraption my mother called a sugar scoop. I’m fairly certain it just sat on the front bench seat of the car and would have propelled me into the next county had we stopped suddenly. Its main attraction was keeping a hot sweaty baby off the momma. Later, when I met family height requirements, I could lay horizontally on the back dash. This was a great way to study clouds and sweat like a bug under a magnifying glass.
Maybe this is why my family of six rarely went anywhere together except church and grandparents.
Today, my granddaughter’s ‘everything’ has safety straps. Her removable car seat has about four points to connect and that is not counting the base that is already buckled tightly in the back seat in a more permanent manner. (Achieving the perfect lock-down was like playing tug-o-war with the seat belts.) The removable car seat can click into a locked position on top of our stroller (Jenni watched a YouTube video to figure that one out) or we can strap Emma directly into the stroller by arranging a spaghetti plate full of straps into a locking position. Luckily, Emma’s little arms and legs are like Play-Doh and always cooperate by going into the correct positions!
We are on our second highchair in her short eight months but each of them had a fair share of straps. Likewise for her walker (the thing with wheels that lets her scoot like a crab—but usually backwards), her bounce-and-play-thingy that clamps in the doorway, and the plastic swing seat we’ve yet to attach somewhere in the house or yard.
So a few days after I earned my distinguished merit badge, we met Emma’s parents for lunch. We had kept her overnight and were doing the baby hand-off. After we ate, I went to our car to get the stroller that Emma’s parents use. Unfortunately it was a different model from ours. After a few minutes of twisting handles and pushing levers trying to open it, I forfeited my merit badge and carried their stroller back to the restaurant where they were waiting.
My son popped it open one-handed.
I think I will stick to being the adorable grandfather who lays in the floor and plays with Emma and just leave all the constraining safety devices to those who have figured them out.