Where's Dave and Jody?: June 2007

Sunday, June 17, 2007

The Cottage

For those of you who have never been to Michigan, I feel sorry for you. This state has too many assets to count, beautiful forests, hundreds of miles of coastline, four National Forests and the best part of the state, my family’s cottage. My folks bought a small cottage on the shores of Lake Huron before my sister and I were born. Sitting between Caseville and Port Austin at the tip of Michigan’s thumb, we have been treated to many sunsets over the lake throughout the years. My sister and I basically grew up here. We learned to swim in Lake Huron before we could walk, learned how to rock climb on a giant sandstone rock just down the beach and learned the art of people watching on the sandy beach. dave and I were married on the shores of Lake Huron just down the sidewalk from the cottage in September 2003. To say the least, the cottage holds a very special place in my heart.

Before heading up north to the cottage we spent a week or so in the Detroit area with dave’s folks. We ran all sorts of errands and purged even more things out of the van. We figured if we haven’t used it in ten months there is a good chance we don’t need it, so three more huge boxes of stuff came out. When it was all sorted through and packed up, it was difficult to see where it had all fit in the van. I guess we must have been good organizers to have made it all fit.

The weather at the cottage has been beautiful since we arrived. We’ve been treated to highs in the mid 80s and lows in the low 50s at night – perfect sleeping weather. The dogs have enjoyed running around on the beach and swimming in the warm waters of Lake Huron. We’ve been watching the sun set from the giant rock down the beach, have gone canoeing on the Pinnebog River, are taking nightly strolls in the wilderness arboretum across the street and have been having a great visit. We’re even thinking about spending the winter up here if we can find a job to earn some money for the trip.

Us at the Rock for Sunset

Us on the Beach After a Canoe Trip

dave and Driftwood (I wanted to take a photo of dave near this neat looking driftwood. The intense heat was making us a little silly so I asked him for his best tiger pose. This is the resulting image. He is going to kill me when he sees this photo on here. So laugh quickly before it gets removed!!)

Just east of our cottage is the small town of Grindstone City. Grindstone City was founded when a ship, the Rip Van Winkle, was forced to take refuge in this small harbor off of Lake Huron. When the crew was exploring the nearby scenery they discovered huge flat stones underlying the area and beach. Word of the stones eventually made their way to Detroit where city officials hired a schooner to pick up the stone. They used it to pave some of the city streets. In fact portions of Jefferson and Woodward Avenues are paved with the infamous grindstone. The grindstones eventually made their way across the world from the US, to Canada, Germany, Russia, Egypt and Africa. Unlike other stones, the grindstone was almost exclusively used as a sharpening stone until it was replaced with carborundum. My sister and I knew portions of this history while growing up but mostly Grindstone City to us meant huge ice cream cones at the general store. This was our after dinner ritual ever other week or so growing up. We’d look for deer along the way (first one to spot a deer got a quarter) and then gorge ourselves on the biggest ice cream cones around. Even though the owners have changed since my childhood the cones are still big and the selection of ice cream is sure to please every palate.

Grindstone City Entrance Sign

dave Skipping Stones in Grindstone City

A Discarded Grindstone

Eating Ice Cream Cones

Our plans from the cottage have just recently changed. Instead of heading to the Pacific Northwest this summer we have decided to head east and check out New England and Canada’s Maritime Provinces before coming back to Michigan to fly out for my sister’s wedding in September.

(As always, you can click on any photo to enlarge it.)

From Colorado to Michigan

From Colorado, we raced back to Michigan for another wedding. This time one of dave’s high school friends, Joe, was getting married. Along the way we decided to stop in Lawrence, Kansas to visit with the members of Truckstop Honeymoon, the band we saw in Chattanooga last December. On our way we were treated to the type of weather that makes Kansas famous. Yup, you guessed it; there was some tornadic activity in the area. We stopped at a rest area a few miles from the worst of the storm which was producing tornados and golf ball sized hail. One of the great things about Kansas is that camping is permitted in the rest areas. One would think that the term “rest area” implies that one could stop and rest for the night, however, Kansas is the only state we have found so far that permits this. We spent the night drinking left over Odell beer in the van with the door open while watching lightning move across the Kansas landscape.

Storm Clouds

Watching the Storm

Our visit with Mike West and Katie Euliss of Truckstop Honeymoon was brief but fun. We stopped by their house after a quick tour of Lawrence. We chatted for awhile and bought a few more of their CDs. (Their latest album, Diamonds in the Asphalt, is finally out. You can get it at their web site www.truckstophoneymoon.com. We recommend it – as for all their other stuff too!!) Our need to get home and the fact that Katie was due to have their third child in two days from our visit prompted the visit to be cut short. We were saddened to leave but when we left Kansas it was listening to more of Mike and Katie’s good music with big smiles on our faces.

Diamonds in the Asphalt Album Cover

The wedding in Michigan was well worth the marathon drive to Michigan. Joe and Brandi almost outdid our wedding. It was a very close second place to the best wedding ever. (Our wedding still holds that title in our eyes.) It was located at the Kellogg Manor just outside Kalamazoo. The grounds were beautiful. The trees were all green and leafed out and there were flowers blooming everywhere you looked. The ceremony took place overlooking Gull Lake and the weather couldn’t have been any better, mid 80s and sunny. In fact it was a little too hot to stay in the sun so we were lucky to be seated under a tree for the ceremony.

Ceremony Overlooking Gull Lake

Groomsmen (The guy to Joe’s left is his brother Mark. This is who we visited in Florida for New Years last December.)

dave went to high school with Joe and although they have kept in touch over the years dave hadn’t seen many of the other people at the wedding for a long time. Most of them, including dave, didn’t attend their high school reunion so this was a great time to catch up with everyone and see how life was treating them. We had a blast.

Rocky Mountain National Park

After our visit to Ft. Collins we decided to take advantage of our close proximity to Rocky Mountain National Park. We were both very excited to see this park and do some more hiking. Unfortunately our original plan to bisect the park and see the alpine scenery needed to be adjusted due to the weather. A fair amount of snow was falling in the higher elevations resulting in the closure of the main park road. We kept our travels to the lower elevations but were still able to play in the snow.

Elk

National Park Scenery

We drove to the Bear Lake Trailhead to hike to a series of lakes below the Tyndall Glacier. Initially the tail was pretty crowded but most people didn’t venture past Nymph Lake. We continued on to Dream Lake and eventually made it up to Emerald Lake. Emerald Lake was still ice covered and we were treated to blizzard. It would have been fun to have some skis and take advantage of the early summer snow.