Joyce & Ron on the Road

October 15 to October 19: Clarksville, Indiana

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October 10 to 14: Auburn, Indiana

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October 8 & 9: Grand Rapids Services

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October 2 - 7: Home at Traverse Bay

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September 29 to October 1: Thompson, Michigan

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September 15 to 29: Treehaven Elderhostel

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We attended an Elderhostel at Treehaven near Tomahawk, Wisconsin. This was another twelve day event similar to the program we enjoyed earlier at Leelanau in Michigan. Doug Moore was our instructor here, too.

Here are the twenty images that Ron submitted for the grand finale night. For the grand finale, the painters showed their paintings, the earth crafters showed their wares, and the photographers each submitted twenty images which Doug combined into a slide show for all to enjoy. There was wine and cheese in the room where the painters and crafters had their exhibits and we photographers encouraged them to drink deeply before coming to view our show.

And here are Joyce's twenty:

September 14: Iron Mountain, Michigan

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September 10 to 13: Munising, Michigan

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September 6 to September 9: Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan

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Lighthouse boat trip.

Scenic drive.

September 5: Onaway for Repairs

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We had an appointment for repairs at Brewbaker's Housing and RV.

August 30 to September 4: St. Ignace, Michigan

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Running a little behind our original plan, we finally made it to the Upper Peninsula! We were heading this way when the Elderhostel ended back in June . . . better late than never.

We visited the Bridge View Park several times to enjoy the view and take pictures.

We enjoyed a great day on Mackinac Island. By the way, sometimes it is spelled Mackinac with a c and sometimes Mackinaw with a w, but either way it's pronounced with the w. Just thought you'd like to know.

We took the Star Line so we could high-tail it to Mackinac Island. There are three competing services and I think the water spray is purely decorative with no necessary cause or function.

We strolled a little, had lunch, and then boarded a horse-drawn carriage (those horses are fabulous artists) for a tour of the island.

We passed the land-side of the Grand Hotel. It was fun to see this as there are TV shows featuring it on the History Channel. The land-side road is on the right end of this picture.

There is a lovely butterfly house. Both Ron and Joyce enjoy butterfly houses and this turned out to be much more than anticipated. The butterflies loved Ron's shirt (and who can blame them). Some landed on Joyce, too, but these are Joyce's photos so you get to see Ron.

There were several species we had not seen elsewhere including this white and orange guy.

We didn't have time to visit the fort . . . next time.

As we were strolling through town again we enjoyed the gardens that were in full bloom.

Now, the Mystery Spot is one of those tourist traps one sees advertised far and wide. We hadn't been to a good Tourist Trap since Hole-N-The-Wall near Moab, Utah, so we were due. This turned out to be a great one that included miniature golf and a maze on the combined ticket (in for a penny, in for a pound Joyce always says about tourist traps so we got the combined tickets).

Our tour guide was great and encouraged participation in all of the demonstrations. Here Ron puts his toes on the board and stands straight and tall.

The night before the big Labor Day walk across the Mackinac Bridge we were down at Bridge View Park, which was to be parking for walkers and included instructions for them to follow to get onto the bridge.

Labor Day the bridge is half for walkers and half for motorized traffic, delightfully slow traffic. We crossed the bridge in the car at 8 to 10 mph so we got to observe and take lots of photos. Here we have the lines for the port-a-potties at the start area.

Normally the walkers must start their crossing between the hours of 7 am and 11 am but they allowed people to continue crossing until 3 pm because there were 57,000 walkers to mark the 50th anniversary of the bridge. The bridge is about five miles long so this is not an insignificant walk.

As we approached the second upright, Ron thought he spotted people on the top . . .

. . . and he did! The photographers had be to very dedicated to the one shot as they couldn't easily scramble to another location for a different view.

Everyone crosses from the Upper Peninsula to the Lower Peninsula and here at the finish line the walkers pooled by the hundreds (and probably thousands) as they recovered a little and then headed off for the buses to go back across to their cars or walked, some for miles more, to their cars on the finish line end.

Here is Joyce with her certificate for completing the 2007 Labor Day State Street Bridge Walk. It's in Cheboygon. It's about two blocks long. We came upon it by accident and joined the walkers. We were eligible for a free hot dog, too, but we chose to continue on to a restaurant for lunch.

Meanwhile back at the RV, we hadn't had DC power since Friday night. This translates to: no lights, no air conditioning, no hot water, and no bringing in of the slide-out rooms, dumping of tanks (we have a powered macerater), bringing in of steps and many other little annoyances. We eventually learned, with the help of CoachNet (AAA for RVers), that the generator would at least help us perform those tasks vital to travel (pull in rooms and steps).

August 23 to August 29: Traverse City, Michigan

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We went back to Traverse Bay RV Resort for a week.

August 20 to August 22: Zeeland, Michigan

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We spent three nights at Dutch Treat Campground again to shake down the motorhome and get ready to move on. It turns out at the heavy rains the days before we return ended up inside the bedroom slide. The rug in the bedroom was wet by the slide but the leak hasn't recurred in heavy rains so we think there was some debris in the seal that allowed a little leak.

August 6 to August 19: Trip to Parker, Colorado

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We parked the motorhome in the storage area of the Dutch Treat Campground and took off in the car for Parker. Our first stop was, not surprisingly, a casino for lunch. It was brand new having opened less than a week previously. We loved this huge sign over a door:

We spent two nights on the road. The first night we enjoyed a delicious pizza dinner at Bob's Your Uncle. Ron learned this saying from Joyce, as she often uses it with her sister.

While in Parker, Ron cleaned out his storage unit -- completely! Loads of stuff were taken to the Goodwill and lots of trash were taken to the dump. When the stuff went into storage about two years ago Ron had expected to move everything back out and into an apartment within a couple of months. What a massive amount of work he did.

It's easy to tell Ron's a grandpa, there's his sweet granddaughter (in her new princess dress) practicing putting a shoe on her bear, but he's going to poke her anyway!

Candi and Gordon

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We had a great time with Joyce's friend from college, Candi Haugen and her husband Gordon Halstead. We met at the mall and had a long lunch catching up. In fact our lunch was so long that we ended up moving out to the food court for a while, too. It was fun to catch up and interesting to find out how many times we came close to seeing each other (both in Yellowstone, Joyce driving toward Michigan) but something happened (or didn't happen!).

This is the same mall where we saw a couple of movies, including the Simpson Movie (Ron really got into that one).

July 23 to August 5: Holland, Michigan

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We came down to Holland to attended the SWMCCC conference -- that's something like Southwest Michigan Camera Club Conference. About 285 people attended a number of classes and photo opportunities. We both really enjoyed the conference even though we found the classes to be uneven in quality (volunteers provide the programs). Ron had fun at a birds of prey photo shoot and Joyce learned a lot about ProShow Gold software. We enjoyed all the people we met, too. Here's a little bit from the Outdoor Discovery Center from Ron:

Joyce enjoyed a workshop about setting up things to take pictures of:

This is behind glass.

This set-up includes an artfully broken window.

Ron worked on this shiloutte.

After the conference was over, we (wait for it) decided to stay for another week to visit some of the wonderful things we heard about but couldn't see because we were in classes. We visited the Outdoor Discovery Center and Holland State Park with great views of Big Red, the lighthouse in Holland. Now we are experiencing record high temperatures which is limited our interest in making some of the other visits we had planned. But we always have fun (as long as the air conditioning holds out at any rate).

This is Big Red just after sunset.

These people are walking back from a small light at the end of the pier.

July 24: Happy Birthday Ron!

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Ron's birthday didn't work out as smoothly as Joyce's. We went out in search of Ron's present at Costco but we didn't really get it until the next day. We wanted to have a late lunch at Outback Steakhouse. It sounded like so much fun. We drove around and finally found the restaurant and then we noticed that the lot was empty because the place didn't open until 4 pm. We did get to go to Red Robin instead and enjoyed it greatly. Joyce mentioned it was Ron's birthday but he begged for no singing. He even turned down the free balloon. He did accept the ice cream sundae, however! Then we went to see Bruce Willis in "Live Free or Die Hard" which Joyce thought was going to be about New Hampshire (state motto: Live Free or Die).

July 15 to July 22 -- More Hanging Around

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We couldn't decide where to go this week so we didn't go anywhere. One more week of watching swans, visiting the casino, and taking drives. The special event of the week was visiting the big horse show. It was so much more than we expected. There were four competition rings, each with a practice ring. We visited during the first of three weeks of competition which featured the younger and more beginner riders in general. We enjoyed watching the jumpers and hunters and just soaking up the general atmosphere.

July 7 to July 14 -- National Cherry Festival

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Love is in the air

The big festival in Traverse City is the National Cherry Festival. We attended a number of the events including the air show over the bottom of Grand Traverse Bay (in fact we went both days). Ron had never seen an air show but Joyce is an old hand at them. Of course, the attractive sun bathers on the sand added an extra touch.

We also saw some of the volleyball, crafts show, and various booths. We really enjoyed the Pow-Wow on Tuesday with all the dancing and music. We watched the big fireworks show at the end of the festival.

Dana was an official photographer at several events.

This is a rear view of the band warming up for their performance.

Both local television stations were broadcasting live from the "Open Area" of the festival. And we found the dog jumping surprisingly fun.

July 6 -- Happy Birthday Joyce!

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Joyce aged as gracefully as she can. We had a fun day of playing miniature golf -- both 18-hole courses at the Pirate Adventure center. Joyce took more strokes than Ron but he carefully explained that birthday girls always get a handicap equal to the difference in our scores plus one. So . . . Joyce won! Of course, she wasn't that aware. Between the two courses we went to Outback Steakhouse for a lovely dinner and we had margaritas! Wow! Joyce had a regular strawberry one and Ron had a double regular. We were loopy. I mean flat-out loopy! Oh, yeah, Joyce colored her hair in the campground bathroom and then couldn't get the broken doorknob to open the door in the morning. What a day!

June 24 to July 5 -- Traverse City

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After visiting with Dana and Kathy, we chose not to move from Traverse Bay RV Resort. This, of course, fits our normal pattern. We find a place we like (and we have a very wide range of "like") and then we just stay there! We engaged in a number of fun activities and just normal living. We revisited some of the areas we had toured with Dana, such as Grass River and Seven Bridges. The most fun place that became a regular stop for us is a park where there were two families of swans! What a joy see them so many times and watching the cygnets get so big.

One of the special events was the Celtic Festival in Fife Lake. We spent most of our time with the athletes tossing the caber, tossing the hammer, and other classic events.

We also attended local summer festivals: Alden has an event called the Stroll on Thursday nights. We listened to live music, once we ate ice cream and watched the sun set another time. Elk Rapids celebrates Wednesday nights with live music, street entertainers, and food booths. We stopped there twice as well.

The Turtle Creek Casino, located just two miles from our RV resort, saw a lot of visits from us. We were breaking even on betting (with several impressive wins) and it was the closest place to get a quick meal. Another casino in Petosky, a ways north of Traverse City, drew us to it three times, two of those times on Wednesdays which was Senior Appreciation Days. Who are we to prevent the casino from appreciating us?

We took pleasure rides around the area including out Old Mission Peninsula.

This is the interior of the cabin.

We took a trip back over to Point Betsie Lighthouse and Glen Haven that we had visited during the Elderhostel.

Boy -- Do I Feel Bad!

2007-07-31T19:49:00.000-07:00

I'm such a goose!

I just read the comments on the blog (I haven't looked earlier because I didn't want to be reminded of how far behind I was!). I finally looked at the blog because of the emails and phone calls we have been receiving from our fans, checking to see if we are still among the living. I assure you all we are alive and well (and I'm also lazy). I will try to catch us up and then we will add the photos.

June 22 and 23: Visiting Dana

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We visited with our friends Dana and Kathy at their home for two days. We had a great time and enjoyed their hospitality. The first evening we were treated to a boat ride on Elk Lake, where their home is located. While on the lake we spotted this merganzer with two of her babies riding on her back.

Ron enjoyed the ride.

The next day we were guided on a visit to a number of interesting photo sites by our hostess, a woman of great grace, as is clearly seen below:

June 10 to 22: Elderhostel

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We both really enjoyed the 12-day Elderhostel at Leelanau, near Glen Arbor, Michigan, focusing on landscape and macro photography in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. Our leaders Doug Moore and Dan Hayes really kept us marching along with early morning field trips some days (we got up at 4:30 a.m. and had breakfast in the field). Other days we enjoyed the luxury of sleeping in to 6:30 with the field trip starting after breakfast. In any event we were back in time for lunch. In the afternoons we processed our images and recovered from our early risings. In the evenings we showed seven of our images in our group critiques which were very interesting for us all. For the finale on the last Thursday we showed our twenty best and also enjoyed viewing the painting of the watercolor group that met at the same time.

Here are Joyce's twenty:

And here are Ron's twenty:

June 4 through 9: Going to Glen Arbor

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The next few days we were mostly traveling to get to our Elderhostel on time. That didn't mean, however, that we didn't have time for some fun! Monday night we were in Chattanooga, Tuesday and Wednesday at Cumberland Falls, Thursday and Friday we were in Wapakoneta, Ohio, and Saturday we spent the night in Roscommon, Michigan.

We visited Cumberland Falls twice during our stay there. It is called the Niagara of the South.

On the way to and from the falls we observed an interesting farm building.

And this picturesque scene with hay in the field:

In Roscommon we visited the Neil Armstrong Space Museum. Here we have Ron in a mock-up of a space capsule:

Joyce was going a little crazy trapped in her space suit: