Hello from sunny Michigan! In case you missed June's post, I'll give a short review here. Okay, so there was no June post. I was lazy last month but we will get caught up this month. We have had many visitors and I will start with our son and daughter-in-law Mike and Wendy and our two grandchildren Graysen and Heidi. We joined them for breakfast in Ludington and they really wanted to go out to Big Sable Point Lighthouse. It was a beautiful day for the 1.8 mile walk among the dunes. We were all able to take some nice pictures and just enjoy the time together. We even were able to get a nice picture of us with the dunes and water.
This is looking up at the light tower from the lake side of the lighthouse. The group that takes care of the buildings are doing a great job of upkeep. It's wonderful that there are groups that take the time to preserve these beautiful structures and their history. I do believe that I would have loved to have been a keeper. It was a lot of work but the rewards and scenery would have been great. Below you can see Heidi taking pictures from the walk way at the top of the tower. Grayson is hiding in the doorway. Fear of heights. I have the same thing but I still climb light towers and walk around.
Well it turns out they had other reasons to go out to the lighthouse. Every year we both get asked the same questions for birthdays. "What do you want", I don't know...when you reach that age in life you already have it or bought it. So this year they gave us something we would never have thought of. They have a boardwalk at the light house that goes out across the sand to the water. They got one for us and had it engraved. You can see several in the picture and ours by itself below. So if you ever walk out there see if you can find ours. Fair warning, there are a lot of them so it may take awhile.
Both cottages at the campground are done and are being rented out. This is Andy reading the instructions on how to build a deck. Not really, he knows how. I failed to mention in the May post about how much structural work had to be done to the two buildings before they could be renovated into livable cottages. Andy and the local handyman Dave put a lot of time into these buildings. They have been used as storage buildings for many years and due to settling and neglect needed much TLC.
The last thing the yellow cottage needed was a deck. Due to the building inspector and code requirements here it took longer then expected and was finished up just days before the first renter arrived. It turned out to be a beautiful deck.
A large storm went thru our neighborhood back home. There were many trees knocked down and uprooted and power outages all over the area. We ended up with a portion of our neighbor's tree in our yard that also took down the power lines in front of our house. Turns out that once it lands in my yard it becomes my tree and I have to deal with it. If that is how they want to deal with it I should have the right to go in his yard and cut it down before it falls and makes a mess but they say I can't do that. I guess I lose no matter what I do.
Ruby and Brutus love being outside. The weather has been perfect. It is usually 10 degrees cooler here then back in town. We have a nice deck and they love to sit out and protect us from the zombie chipmunks. Ruby would sit out here all day if we would let her.
Our friends Jack and Lynn were up from Florida and stopped and spent a few days with us. We went to Lake Michigan to watch the sunset but it was too cloudy. We did take a couple of nice pictures though.
Our grandson Jason was up and went fishing for the first time. It took a little while but once he caught that first one it was off to the races. Beckie our daughter caught one and Mikayla our granddaughter also got in on the act.
Everyone had a great time. Except me, I didn't catch any. I guess that's the luck of the draw.
This is the lighthouse at Point Betsie. This is located about 2 hours north of us and is another well cared for light station. If you are new to our blog I'll say we love light houses so there will be more to come. This one can also be toured and is open to the public.
We took a ride up to Manistee which is about 45 minutes north of us and stopped to tour the S.S. City of Milwaukee and the USCGC Acacia. The City of Milwaukee is a rail car ferry that ran between Frankfort and one port in Michigan and two in Wisconsin. The Acacia is a 180 foot retired ice breaking buoy tender. We toured the Acacia first which is a self guided tour. I was stationed on a ice breaking buoy tender in Alaska. This one was very much like the one I was on and brought back a lot of memories. Below is the mess deck, a little smaller but I was on a 210 foot ship.
This is the buoy deck and crane where they worked on buoys when needed and carried others out as replacements for damaged ones. Below is the engine room. They had two diesel engines that were connected to generators that powered electric motors for propulsion. The ship had 52 crew members and maintained over 210 buoys and lighthouses in Lake Michigan and Lake Superior.
This is the City of Milwaukee. As you can see it is much larger then the Acacia. This carried rail cars and passengers to different points on Lake Michigan. There are four sets of rail tracks on the car deck where they carried rail cars across the lake to avoid the congestion in Chicago. Below is the car deck which is where they carried the rail cars. Every car was tied down to the deck to prevent them from moving or rocking while underway. If cars came loose and started moving around they could cause a lot of damage or even cause the ferry to sink.
It took a crew of fifty to keep the ships moving day and night. Four different railroads ran several ferries on Lake Michigan to ports in Michigan, Wisconsin and Canada. This is one of the crew rooms. Nothing fancy and next to the engine room.
This is a picture of the ship in its heyday. It was the last traditional rail car ferry on the Great Lakes. It was built in 1931 and retired in 1981.
This is a passenger stateroom. Also not real fancy but a least it was on the upper deck and not next to the engine room. There was a galley and a dining/sitting area (pictured below). They now run it as a bed and breakfast on weekends and have 26 rooms available. They also run other events throughout the summer and give guided tours. If you are in Manistee, make time to visit; they are located right on US 31 on the north side of Manistee. Worth the time to visit a National Historic Landmark.
This is another shot of the car deck, The tracks are covered for ease of walking but are still there. As you can see there is plenty of room on this side and the other side to load cars. They had to be sure and load each side equally so as not to tip the ship over on its side.
Well as happens every June.. I get a year older. They decided I should have a party to celebrate me getting older. I think it was just an excuse to have cake and ice cream (works for me). Turns out that Phyllis, who is one of our seasonal campers, has a birthday on the same day. We were also born in the same year, which makes us the same age. We also went to different schools together (confused yet?). We had a few of our guests come up to help us celebrate along with some of our seasonal campers.
This is the lighthouse at the end of the breakwater in Frankfort. It isn't open to the public but is an interesting light. The more I look at this picture the more I love it. The day was overcast and cool and for some reason it made this look almost like a painting.
We drove up to Traverse City during Cherry Festival time. We walked around the carnival, had lunch over by all the different food tents and walked by Grand Traverse Bay. After all of the excitement of the big city we drove up to Old Mission Point Lighthouse. All of the other times we have been here it has been closed to the public. It was a nice surprise to find that it has been opened to tours now. The view is fantastic.
On the way back home we stopped at a U-Pick cherry orchard. We picked a lot of cherries and they just don't get any fresher then this. It's a good thing they didn't weigh us before and after we started or we would have owed them a few more dollars.
On the fourth of July we went into Pentwater to the state park to watch fireworks. The beach was packed. I don't think there was a parking spot left anywhere near town. We saw a beautiful sunset as a prelude to the show.
The show started right on time and it was a very enjoyable night. You can see Murray's silhouette in this picture. He goes everywhere with me when I have a lot of walking to do. Plus he loves fireworks also.
My sister Nancy came up for a few days with her granddaughter Lola. We went to Mac Woods dune rides by Silver Lake and boarded a dune scooter to fly across the sand dunes. Up and down hill and dale with the wind whistling thru our hair.
Here we are flying across the dunes with the look of anticipation on our faces as we approach the next hill. In the distance we can see Lake Michigan's calm and cool water beckoning us to hurry and enjoy it's beach and soothing water.
Here they are soothing their toes in the cool water of Lake Michigan.
Our daughter Beckie and her family came up and spent a couple of nights with us in their tent. Our grandson Jason loved it. This was his first camping experience.
Here he is with his dad headed to the beach to go kayaking. He was all excited about this new adventure and helped to the best of his ability. He helped carry the paddle and hold the kayak until everything was ready.
He had a great time with his dad. The paddles were a little large for him so so John did all the work.
The Port of Ludington Maritime Museum just opened this spring. It is in the old Coast Guard Boathouse. I think they have done a very nice job on the displays and of the maritime history of the area. They have some very nice articles and information on lighthouses of which the Great Lakes have many.
There is much information and several displays about the car ferries that sailed the waters of Lake Michigan. Many sailed out of Ludington. The Badger still sails out of Ludington carrying cars, trucks, RV's and passengers back and forth to Wisconsin.
There is one interactive display where you can be the Captain of the car ferry P.M. #22 and pilot it into or out of the channel in Ludington. You can choose day or night, clear or foggy. They told me that if you run into anything all the windows in the pilot house shatter. I did not have the chance to see this first hand but later I heard the windows shatter when some one hit the channel wall.
This is our friend Jack trying his hand at the wheel. I was his first mate operating the engine room telegraph.
We decided to go to Manistee and have a picnic lunch down by the channel. It was a beautiful Michigan day; very windy but the sky was a wonderful clear blue and the sun was warm.
I saw this sign and figured that it said how many miles across to Wisconsin. Wrong, it is how many strokes. I wonder who swam that and kept count at the same time.
Well that's it all caught up again. We will be here until the middle of September, Until then we will just be sitting around enjoying the sun and water and waiting to see who shows up next. You never know, it might just be you. See you then.
at Canyon Vistas again but we are not working. My back has been getting worse over the last couple of years and when we were in Camp Verde last year we found a surgeon we really liked. So we came back here to take three months off so I could have my back repaired and give me time to recover. I had the surgery on November 9 and as of now have been working on doing nothing to mess it up again. I see the doctor tomorrow and hopefully I'll be able to start doing more to get back into being able to get back to working.
We arrived here on October 1 and the whole month was 100 degrees or close every day. We had two AC units running 24/7 just to keep the motor home cool. We have been bored out of our minds because we have seen almost everything in the area from when we worked here two years ago and the heat kept us inside most of every day. The one good thing is that our friends John and Barb arrived around the middle of Oct. I worked with John when we were here two years ago and we have stayed in touch since then.
John and Barb had never been up to the town Of Carefree. We took them there to see the pumpkin patch. They have pumpkin carvers come in and they carve the pumpkins and set up little scenes all over the park in the center of town. Yup, that's Barb and John with a new friend . That's one thing about John he can sit down and talk the ears off anyone.
Here are some of the scenes that were set up. As you can see these people have a bit of an imagination. From the general store, to the boxing ring to the pumpkin family. 
Here is one tough looking hombre. Kind of reminds you of John Wayne doesn't it Pilgrim?
We went to breakfast one morning and then to the new aquarium. It was quite surprising as to the amount of displays inside. A lot of fresh and salt water exhibits. You can see they started out with nice friendly turtles. Then on to some one not so friendly. 
Do you see him? He sure can see you with those beady eyes just sticking out of the water as he lays there pretending to be an old log floating in the water.
Here is Toucan Sam's brother. They also had some parrots, a sloth, and some snakes and other creepy crawly things. 
Here is the Otter family. I asked them to sit still and smile but as we all know there is always that one that just won't listen.
Theyhad a wonderful Penguin exhibit. It was interesting to watch how they would love to spend time with one of the trainers and go up to her for snuggles and kisses and petting.
I just love to see the reef exhibits with the brightly colored fish swimming around. Now my granddaughter Brianna is afraid of clowns but I'll bet that she would love that little clown fish in the picture below (maybe, can never tell with that girl).
They have one exhibit that moves from tank to tank and all you do is sit and relax. In the first one they have a diver that tells you about some of the exhibits and you can ask him questions.
In the next tank there are the Sea Lions. As you move thru the different areas they tell you about the different animals and fish you are seeing. Yes they do have sharks. In fact several different kinds. They must be well fed because there were a lot of other fish in there with them that didn't seem too worried about the sharks.
