HOUSTON TO WHITEHALL, MI ~ TUESDAY, JUNE 16, 2009 This season we were a little late leaving for the boat because we spent most of May in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. See the links to these area for details. Finally, we got everything together and decided to leave on June 16th. We tried something new this year. We drove to Michigan to the boat, instead of flying. We felt like we had spent a lot of time in recent months flying and it just seemed so much simpler to drive, plus we got to see so much more of the country. We left about 9:30 am, Tuesday, the 16th. We took our time driving to the boat. We visited most of the marinas in southern Michigan, to see if we wanted to bring the boat to any of them. We celebrated Phil’s birthday in Holland, Michigan at a bar with a great name!
beautiful home in a lovely fern forest. They graciously let us make ourselves at home while we waited for the boat to be put in the water and even watched with us for three more nights while the University of Texas played LSU in the baseball college world series. LSU won, much to my despair. . . While we were in Muskegon, Laura and Ginger took us to see two historic homes. They were built by two lumber barons, who were partners and good friends. They built their huge homes side by side with a lot between them. They shared a three story carriage house. Charles Hackley’s home was quite a showplace with elaborate woodwork and carving throughout the home. It was a testament to his wealth and importance in the community. Thomas Hume’s home was quite large, spacious and more like a family home. The Humes raised their seven children in that house. The houses were furnished with period pieces, but the original furnishings were sold after the deaths of the elder Humes and Hackleys. The houses are beautiful old homes, very well maintained. It was interesting to tour them and have a glimpse of the wealth and prestige of the lumber baron’s lifestyle. We also discovered with Ginger and Laura’s help and much to our delight, a number of really good restaurants in Muskegon. We liked Bear Lake Tavern, a little place that has been there many years, and has great fish and chips, as well as anything you might want to eat. We also can recommend Hobo’s, the Tipsy Toad for sandwiches and Mr. B’s Pancake House for breakfast. “Harmony” was finally launched on Monday, June 22nd. We had a lot of work to do to get the boat ready to be our home away from home, boxes we brought from home to unpack and cleaning inside and outside. We also had a serious faucet leak in the kitchen, so we had the faucet replaced. We had a seal replaced in the port transmission while the boat was in winter storage, so the transmission and shaft had to be aligned after the boat had been in the water a couple of days. That was finally done on the 30th, eight days after we launched. The wheels of progress grind slowly at Moxie Marine. We left Whitehall on July 1 to visit friends in the upper peninsula of Michigan. WHITEHALL, MI ~ LAKE LINDEN, MI ~ JULY 1 – 6, 2009 At about 9:15 am, July 1st, we left the boat at Whitehall, headed for the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. We went by Gary’s Café for breakfast and then we were on our way. We drove through some of our favorite places from last year, Ludington, Petoskey and Charlevoix, where we stopped and shopped at some of the stores we liked before. We arrived in St. Ignace, Michigan, about 6:30 and went to dinner at the Mackinac Grill, a good restaurant overlooking the Straits of Mackinac. St. Ignace is a resort area with several hotels built along the beach. Our hotel had a beautiful beach which was practically deserted because it was late and a little chilly. The next day, we took a side trip because we wanted to see Sault Ste. Marie and the locks. This is where the freighters and other big ships lock through to get from Lake Superior to the other Great Lakes and from there through Canada to the St. Lawrence Seaway and out to the Atlantic Ocean. We arrived just in time to see a freighter, locking through. The woman who works by the lock in the visitor’s museum told us that their shipping traffic is down 66%, which was shocking to us. They can pack as many as 23 different smaller boats in a single lock and usually have a steady stream of big ships, locking through. There are four locks. Two ships, counting the one we saw, were the only ones that would lock through that day, not counting the tour boats that take people through the locks. She has a monitoring system that allows her to see great distances in either direction down the ship channel and there were no more ships approaching. Sault Ste. Marie is a cute little town, with a beautiful large public park. We had lunch at the Freighter’s Restaurant, which had a good view and was very good. Then it was on to the Keweenaw Peninsula out of Lake Linden to see our friends, Russ and Duffy, whom we met a couple of years ago on the Loop. We arrived about 9:00 pm, 601 miles from White Lake and 2298 miles from Houston. It was July 2, 2009. On the evening of the third of July, we took our lawn chairs out to their lighthouse by the shore of the lake that borders their property. We built a bonfire and watched the fireworks from the town and from others on the lake. We love fireworks and they were beautiful. On the 4th of July, Russ had been asked to drive his 1955 aqua Ford pickup truck in the parade. It was a community –wide celebration through five small towns, but we rode in the one through Lake Linden. We all wore red, white and blue. Russ and Phil rode in the front and Duffy and I rode in the bed of the truck and waved at the crowds. And crowds there were, for blocks and blocks, people were standing five and six deep waving, smiling and wearing red, white and blue. Being the jaded Houstonians that we are, we were amazed at the number of people who came to the parade and, at the same time, delighted by it. It was so much fun. There were floats, marching bands, antique cars, politicians and many fire trucks from surrounding towns, as well as Lake Linden. After it was over, the guys dropped Duffy and me at our car, so we could go to the next little town to the volunteer fire department’s barbeque to pick up the chicken dinners they had ordered for us. Russ has a cousin, Frank, who came to have dinner with us. We ate in an area in their back yard called Duffy’s Park. She and I played croquet in the afternoon, as well as Farkel, a dice game. Their grandson, Zach, lives with them while going to college in a nearby town. He had a friend, Derek, visiting him for the week-end and Duffy, Derek, Zach and I played Sequence that evening. The country side is just beautiful in the Upper Peninsula. Russ and Duffy’s home is in the country out of Lake Linden. It is on another lake and is a huge piece of property with beautiful flower gardens throughout it. She is an avid gardener and it shows. She knits, quilts, embroiders, sews, makes bird baths and, out of old used wool coats, makes mittens, purses and scarves that sell like crazy at the bazaars where she markets them. Russ is an excellent wood-worker and can build anything. We went with Russ and his grandson, Zach, to deliver a table base he made for a client. He is and has been redesigning the client’s house and the woodwork and cabinetry is absolutely beautiful. He and Zach are currently redoing a boat for another client, adding a cabin and redoing all the woodwork. What a craftsman he is, his work is amazing! Russ and Duffy do mission work in Mexico every summer. They meet a group of people in McAllen, Texas who work with the Mexican people who live just across the border. In the present climate in Mexico, it is a dangerous place to be. They stayed with us on their way down this year and we tried to discourage them, but they decided to go and talk to the people in charge. After their meeting, they went ahead with their work. Russ built cabinets for two kitchens, two sets of bunk beds and other miscellaneous pieces. Duffy helped clothe some children, tried to teach sanitation and generally worked with the families, doing whatever was necessary. This is the second year that they have stayed with us, either on the way down or back. We have really enjoyed their visits. They were kind enough to take us on a sightseeing drive to Copper Harbor, Michigan. It is just about as far north as you can go in the Upper Peninsula. We even went to the Devil’s Blowhole, a place at the shore where the waves come into the rocks and water shoots straight up many feet into the air through a hole carved out in the side of a rocky cliff. It was a little perilous getting out on the rocks to see it. I did not quite get all the way out! We stopped in Gay, Michigan, and had our picture taken in front of the Gay Bar. We saw many beautiful waterfalls, even got out in a little park near one where we sat and had our pictures taken again! Our big wild-life sighting of the day was a pair of Sand Hill Cranes strolling along the road side and the beach. Phil got out and tracked them while they watched him, but continued their stroll. They are beautiful big birds and Phil and I had only seen them in pictures before our sighting! We were delighted. Near the shore we found a turtle nest with newly laid eggs, which we, of course, could not see because they were buried, but Duffy pointed out where it was and told us about it. They have them on their property, also, by the shore. The mother turtles come out of the water, walk until they find just the right place for their eggs, bury themselves a little bit in the sand and lay the eggs. Then they cover them up even more and walk back to the water to swim away. The babies hatch, find their way to water and swim away. The trick is for the eggs not to fall prey to some other animal during the incubation period and for the babies once hatched to make it safely to the water. There is a wildflower called Lupine that grows along the roads in the Upper Peninsula. We took many photos of them because they are so prevalent and beautiful, but I believe Duffy said they were poison. They come in a variety of colors and are just lovely. We had a late lunch at the Harbor Haus in Copper Harbor, a German restaurant with a great view of Lake Superior and exceptional food of all kinds.
mined into the 1900’s. The peninsula is 150 miles long and 50 miles wide. There are many mines in the area, now deserted. There is only one mine, the Caledonia, still being mined for copper and mineral specimens. OTHER VIEWS FROM THE KEWEENAW PENINSULA LAKE LINDEN, MI TO DOOR COUNTY, WI ~ JULY 6 – 8 On Monday, July 6th, we reluctantly said good-bye to Russ, Duffy and Zach. We had such a good time. We look forward to seeing them again next summer when they make their mission trip to Mexico. We left at 11:45 for Sturgeon Bay. Just before we arrived at Russ and Duffy’s last Thursday, Zach was on his way back to the house when a mother bear and her three cubs ran across the road in front of him. They rarely see a bear, but it is even rarer for a bear to have triplets. We were so excited and, although we drove that same road many times during our stay, we never saw the bear. Russ told us that we would get to see a moose at a certain point on the highway to Sturgeon Bay. We arrived at that point and there she was with a baby moose beside her! People were stopped with binoculars, looking at them. Needless to say, we had our binoculars out also! We stopped for lunch in Iron Mountain, Michigan, and met one of Russ and Duffy’s five children who is Zach’s mother. Molly and her husband, Tom, met us at the restaurant. It was such a pleasure visiting with them and so nice of them to go out of their way to come and meet us. We asked Russ how we would recognize Molly and he said, “Just look for the prettiest girl there and that will be Molly!” We both agreed he was absolutely right! We stopped for a diet coke in Crystal Falls, Michigan, and met a man, John, and his wife from Alma, Michigan. They were riding a Suzuki 650 and were on their way to North Dakota to the Single Cylinder 4-Stroke Riders Association meeting. The group gets together once a year for lunch. It seemed to me to be a long way to go for lunch, but they seemed to be excited about it. We arrived in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, at 6:30. We stayed at the Stone Harbor Resort, a resort hotel which is on the river which flows through Sturgeon Bay. There is so much seaweed in the harbors on this river that there are mowers that cut and removes it from some of the areas in some of the harbors. We were so surprised! It would not be good to have a boat in the middle of that seaweed. It is very thick. On July 7th, we had lunch at the Sturgeon Bay Yacht Club and decided to drive up into Door County, which is the big recreational area in Wisconsin. It is a beautiful area, a peninsula that extends along the coast of Wisconsin. A little south of Sturgeon Bay is where it starts and Washington Island is at the top. Our destination was Sister Bay, almost to the end. We planned to check out the marinas in Door County to see if we wanted to bring the boat to any of them. We went to Egg Harbor, Fish Creek, Ephraim and Sister Bay. Most of the marinas we saw were for smaller boats and had very little protection, so we decided that we would not bring the boat any further north. The weather was nice and some areas were very crowded. There are pretty inns and bed and breakfast lodging that looked so inviting. It would be a great place to spend a long week-end, if we came by car. DOOR COUNTY, WI TO WHITE HALL, MI ~ JULY 8 – 11 We left Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, for Sheboygan, Wisconsin, on July 8, 2009. We planned to follow the shore of Lake Michigan as closely as we could to see the marinas on the way to Sheboygan. Our granddaughter, Maddie, who is eleven, was in a national dance competition streamed live on the web, so we raced to the nearest town, Algoma. We sat in the parking lot of the visitor’s center and used our Verizon card to get on the web. Phil has an inverter in the car, so we thought we were in business. I couldn’t remember the correct web-site and by the time Phil found it, we missed her by one dance! We stayed there for two hours, waiting for them to give the awards, so we could see her! We went to lunch in Algoma at the Steelhead Tavern and headed south. We went to the Kewaunee Marina, which is well-protected and seemed like a nice marina. It would be a place to call ahead because they only had a few slips available. We stopped in Manitowoc to look at the marina there and liked it very much. It is well-protected, also, has good prices and seemed to have good facilities. It is a very secure marina with locks on the gates at the head of each dock of slips. We have a friend, Gladys, in Sheboygan who invited us to stay with her. We arrived at her home about 6:00 pm. She took us to dinner at the Sheboygan Yacht Club. We had a delicious meal, overlooking the marina. It was very nice. Phil is a member of the Lake Canyon Yacht Club in Texas and has reciprocal privileges at the Sheboygan Yacht Club and we plan to stay there on our way down Lake Michigan to Chicago. The next day Gladys, Phil and I went to look at the Yacht Club again and talk to them regarding our staying there. We also looked at the City Marina. It seemed nice also. We went to lunch at a really cute place near the water called Highland House. From there, it was on to Port Washington, approximately 28 miles by water from Sheboygan. We liked the marina in Port Washington, also. It is a cute little town and we decided that it would be a possible stop, also. We three went back to Sheboygan and had dinner at the Rusty Anchor in the Blue Harbor Resort. It is a very nice, huge resort hotel with condos, as well as rooms. It is right on the water and has a nice beach. It has a central part, the lobby, and two long wings where the condos and rooms are located. The resort has a red roof, except on the left wing where the roof is white. It seems the seagulls have designated it for another use. Gladys has a son, Jay, who is also a friend of ours. He took the day off from work and we picked him up at 10:00 on Friday, July 10th, and left for Milwaukee to view marinas. We were glad Jay was with us, not only because we wanted to see him and spend time with him, but as an added plus, he really knows Milwaukee and could give us directions. We had lunch at the South Shore Yacht Club and really liked the marina. We also went to the Milwaukee Yacht Club and it was very nice, also. We drove down Lake Drive and looked at all the beautiful homes. Milwaukee is a very pretty city. After lunch, we went to the Harley-Davidson Museum. Jay has a Harley and wanted to go, as did Phil. I felt like I had fallen down the rabbit hole and thought it would be so awful! However, it was very interesting. It is very well done and has motorcycles from the early 1900’s. We went to a great place for dinner in Sheboygan with Gladys and Jay called the Black Forest Grill. It is a local place and was absolutely packed. They say you need to be there by 5:00 or you will have to wait an hour. We were there by 5:30 and waited about an hour at the bar and then had a wonderful dinner. We left Sheboygan about 8:00 am on Saturday, July 11. We had such a good time, staying with Gladys. We stopped in Milwaukee for breakfast and also to see Maddie dance again in the nationals. We found the web-site immediately, but it was down! We tried and tried to no avail. We arrived in White Hall, ran a few errands and were back at the boat about 5:00. It was good to be back at our home away from home! |
Houston to Whitehall, the Upper Peninsula, MI and Door County, WI by Auto
Harmony Log 2009
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Seattle Skyline
Buchart Gardens on Vancouver Island
Whate tail on Evening Whate Quest
Whate Pass Railroad Trip to Yukon Territory
Hackley House
Hume House
Shared Carriage House between the houses
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| Snow Guage |
| Stone Harbor Resort |
