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Published: August 14th 2015
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Travels with Just one Snowbird and her friend, Wednesday and Thursday, August 12 and 13, 2015, Port Austin, MI
The house Barb and I are visiting is her family cottage, where her folks spent their summers while growing up, to get away from Detroit. Barb's brother, Pete, moved here full time after he retired and parents had passed. Pete did major renovations and additions, and the result is a beautiful all year round house with beautiful finishings. He has a woodwork shop in his garage, beautiful flowerbeds and vegetable gardens, and hummingbirds. I got to see my first ever hummingbird nest! I met neighbors, Sherry and Larry. They spend summers here on the lake, holidays at their home near Pontiac, and winter in Punta Gorda, FL. After a leisurely morning with a couple of cups of coffee, Barb, Sherry and I took off to visit Caseville, about 15 miles away, also on the lakefront.
Caseville is home to the annual Cheeseburger in Paradise event, and it starts this weekend. I read that there will be 50,000 people here for this event......mostly drinking and Concerts from what I see in the weekly 8 page local free newspaper. The vendors and
merchants are starting to set up their tents; we decided to visit early so we would not have to fight the massive crowds. Caseville is 3 blocks long. Many of the old time downtown stores are gone, replaced with boutiques or just empty. Picnic tables and huge vendor tents are everywhere. I saw a stage being set up in the town park. All the local campgrounds appear full. I had to buy a Cheeseburger 2015 T Shirt, which also says Key North....get it....Key West....Key North.......
Then we met Bill. He was setting up shop in front of a local sports store. He had hundreds of wooden (made and painted by him) signs with cutesy Margaritaville decorations and Sayings. Hidden under a pile I found a bundle of birds....wooden, painted like Blue Herons, flamingoes, and Great White Heron/Egret. I had to have one, and bought it. If my son Tim thinks he might like one, he has to read this and let me know that he wants one. This is a test to see if he reads mommy's blog. Laugh. I am going to hang it on my porch, it will look great. He told me he would give me
a discount on the second one. Bill was painting wooden whales ocean blue. I didn't particularly like them, and told him he was overcharging, and I told him I would be back to see if he sold any. They sure we're not worth $50.
We lunched at The Riverside, not on the river, by the way, but near it, an old fashioned bar/restaurant, nice burger and sandwich menu, yes I had an excellent Cheeseburger. This bar had a bar shuffleboard table, billiard table, and keno machines on the walls, a new game approx every 3 minutes, for $1, I think. There was a juke box...electronic, not the old fashioned kind.
We went and looked at the homes of the rich and famous along Sand Point, where purchasing a lot , ($250k to $500k per zillow) could give you both lagoon and lakefront property.
On the way home we detoured to Elkton to search for the 'free corn the little old lady told us about that was in the field next to a church.' Elkton has 4 churches, a lot for a teeny town, all with corn fields next to them, none of them had a 'free' sign
next to it.
Back at the house, we joined up with brother Pete and Sherry's husband Larry and all drove to Verona for dinner at Verona Tavern. I had a Lemon Shandy, 2 yummy pork chops, wonderful lumpy mashed potatoes dripping with butter, so-so coleslaw and great homemade bread, $11 total. I sampled one of Larry's fried mushrooms...hot and crispy. Barb and Sherry had all you can eat spaghetti with meat sauce, $6.99, Pete had a burger.
We had a lot of laughs on the ride home, they had fun showing tourist me some of the local sights, a barn painted on each end by a local artist, see pictures. When we passed a gas station we noticed the price of gas had gone up,over $.40 since the day before. From a Detroit newspaper:
LANSING, MI -- The rising gas prices are tied to a BP refinery in Indiana, which saw capacity diminish when its largest crude distillation unit malfunctioned and suffered damage. gas prices in Michigan have attracted the attention of Michigan politicians, but an industry expert says the prices are just a function of basic economics. The average retail price for a gallon
of gasoline in Michigan went from $2.47 on Monday to $2.97 on Wednesday. Rep. Michael Webber, R-Rochester Hills, is calling for an investigation by Attorney General Bill Schuette. "This dramatic increase in price deserves a full investigation by a trusted Michigan official," said Webber, who serves on the House Committee on Energy Policy, in a statement. Sen. John Proos, R-St. Joseph, is also calling for the investigation. "As our state continues down the road of an economic comeback, we cannot allow the hard-working people of Southwest Michigan to be taken advantage of by artificially high gas prices," Proos said in a statement. "For this reason, I am calling on Michigan's attorney general to investigate the necessity of the price increase on our citizens."
Unbelievable.
Back at the house we played a card game called 'Oh Shit.' What a fun game. We played 2 rounds, which is 14 hands each round. I won one round, beginners luck. I fell into bed and fell asleep watching a recent episode of General Hospital. I slept thru the rain and thunder last night. I remember I woke up once from a great funny dream, that I said I would never forget it
was so funny, but I forgot by morning. Why does that happen??
Thursday was the girls day for visiting the town of Bad Axe. Along the way we saw a sign at The Country Village for a 50% off sale. What a lovely store, and I guess they were going out of business. Most of their inventory was fall flower arrangements, but they had some lovely primitive style decorations, and lovely garden art pieces, but nothing I had to have. We left without buying anything. All of us.
There are over 600 windmills in Michigan, and most of them in 'The Thumb', where we are, and I gotta believe we saw them all on the ride to Bad Axe. My google research told me there is the usual love/hate relationship with their turbine engines, but they sure are majestic. They are expletive deleted big.
Bad Axe was established in 1905. The city's unusual name dates to the time of its settlement. While surveying the first state road through the Huron County wilderness in 1861, Rudolph Papst and George Willis Pack made camp at the future site of the city and found a much-used and badly damaged axe. At Pack’s suggestion, Papst used the name “Bad Axe Camp” in the minutes of the survey and on a sign he placed along the main trail. The population is approx 3000 making it the largest city in Michigan's Thumb. We visited the grocery store for great fresh donuts, Ace Hardware which carried Vera Bradley, Peebles (Essie nail polish buy one get one free) thrift store (garden art $2.50), and Walmart, a few groceries, nail polish remover, a new beach cover up ($7). Another day with a lot of old lady laughs.
Back at the cottage, Barb and I sat on a neighbor's lakefront patio and watched life go by and crocheted after our late lunch of Walmart Pizza....actually not too bad.
At night the boys watched the first Detroit football game of the season and the ladies played Hand and Foot.
All is well with the world. I am relaxed and having a good time. Nice to be here in this relaxing environment.
Off tomorrow to Frankenmuth. I will tell you all about it.
Kat out
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