Vacation Odds and Ends

I thought I would share the rest of our vacation pictures with you.

This is just Irv getting tired of being photographed. :)

This was a little cheesecake shop.....with very good cheesecake!


This is their old state hospital....purchased and being totally renovated as offices and retail. The inside was wonderful and the little shops were great! Isn't it a magnificent building?

I love old log cabins.....



Lake Michigan.....with an awesome little rock tower someone built.




I thought this was kind of cool....


So pretty......


I happen to love black squirrels. We don't have a lot of them here, but we saw a lot of them in Michigan! Isn't he just the cutest little thing?

We had never seen grapevines growing like this before....

Cherry trees......everywhere.......



A very old gas pump in front of a little general store......



It was a long way down......but lots of people chose to walk, or slide down on their butts.....down the 450 foot drop to get to the water from the scenic look out. We chose not to. We would have gotten down....maybe....and never got back up! See those tiny little people way down there?


The view from the look out was wonderful, but the wind was so strong it almost blew you over. The sand hitting your legs really hurt....but it was worth it!


Everywhere you turned there was something beautiful to look at!

Have a wonderful holiday weekend!

Sailing on The Tall Ship Manitou

Our first sailing experience was certainly one to remember. We set out at 3:00 p. m. and returned at 5:00 p.m. The captain was a very pleasant guy and his 2 girl and 2 guy crew of 20 somethings was fabulous. Those kids worked their butts off to show us a great time aboard their ship.

We were allowed to go "below" so we could see what things looked like....the crew actually lives on the ship. I must say that isn't something I could do after seeing their "beds", but what an experience for these young people.

It was a beautiful day and as we were sailing across the bay....I thought about how awesome it would be to just lay on the deck with my eyes closed and enjoy the fresh air and sunshine as the wind and the sails take me to far off lands.

Enjoy the cruise.......

Make it a beautiful day for yourself.......

It's Time!!

I'm making a list and checking it twice......gonna make sure I don't forget anything when we leave on our mini vacation to Traverse City on Wednesday. Irv is running some last minute errands, laundry is just about done, house/dog sitter is lined up and we are counting the hours.

I've been weather watching and right now it looks like a stormy day Wednesday for the drive up, but then a couple days of partial sun and cooler temps which is exactly how I like it.

Tomorrow I will call and make our kayaking reservations and also the ones for our ride on the tall ship. I think there will be enough nice weather for that....and probably the dunes and the scenic drive up the peninsula. I am so excited!

I haven't decided whether the laptop is joining us on our little trip. If you don't hear from me for a number of days.....you will know it decided to stay home!

Have a great rest of the day and I'll chat with you soon!

I Need A Vacation

Those of you that have been reading my blog for a while know that I LOVE planning our annual vacation. This year we are only going to take a few days because I want to save some of my vacation in case Tresa needs me after our little grandson arrives in the fall. Not only that...Uncle Sam didn't give us much of our money back this year, and that is what we use for our vacation.

Our vacation is usually a trip out to Colorado, so this year's planning was really different for me. I needed to find somewhere that wasn't too far away, yet offered plenty of things to do. I spent a lot of time online over the weekend and we have decided on Traverse City, Michigan. We've never been there. Traverse City is on Lake Michigan and water is a key element for our vacation if I can't have the mountains.

In Traverse City, we will be able to rent kayaks and paddle down the Crystal River for 2-3 hours. (Photo from crystalriveroutfitters.com)

We can hike around the Sleeping Bear Sand Dunes. (Photo from nps.gov/slbe)

We can even take a 2 hour cruise on a tall ship. (Photo from tallshipsailing.com)

We hope to do all three of those things! I am pretty excited and I think we found the perfect place for a mini vacation. Are you going on vacation this year?