Wednesday, July 1

Top picture: Old Mission Lighthouse at the end of the peninsula at Traverse City
Middle Picture: The shallow shore in front of the lighthouse
Bottom Picture: Jerry and his balanced rocks....

Wednesday, July 1…Up not too early…about 7:30..it stays light so late up here in the north that we seem to be loathe to get to bed at our usual time which could be anywhere from 9:00 until midnight….it was delightful sleeping as it is so nice and cool…make that almost cold. The high yesterday and today was only in the 50’s or very low 60’s. That makes for some nice sleeping weather….At any rate, as we started to load up this a.m. and I was bringing in the slides we seemed to have developed a problem…they wouldn’t move!!! Oh for joy….we were also on the phone trying frantically to secure a place to stay through the holiday weekend. The plan was to be in Traverse City, Michigan. After diddling with the slides forever it seemed like, and many phone calls to the dealership in Missouri, Jerry learned how to crank in the slides by hand. I must admit he was pretty good at it…the slides had been moving very slowly it seemed to me and I think Jerry was actually a bit faster with the hand crank once he figured out that the crank works the slide on the opposite side of the RV from where it is located. Turned out to be a mere 30 amp fuse that had blown and sucked the battery power way down as well (the slides work ONLY on battery power…we were plugged in but that doesn’t help the slides). So, about noon we were on our way.

The other good news was that one of the RV parks we called had space for two nights, Wed. and Thurs. so we jumped on that to have a place to stay while we could find something else. Then a second place called back and had openings for all 5 nights, but we opted to do Wed. and Thurs. at this place as it is closer to all the stuff we want to do on the western side of the state. We will leave here Friday and head for East Jordan which is further north for the holiday weekend and work out of there to see what we want to see. We arrived in Traverse City around 3 p.m and after a failed attempt at one site, we finally got settled in a site that we could get into. Drove into town to see what it was like and drove along the lakefront. There is a National Cherry Festival here beginning Sat. and running through next weekend. Jerry says we are NOT going, but I haven’t given up yet. … there is a food cart for Elephant Ears after all!!

We drove up one of the many peninsulas here - as it was a scenic drive and it was beautiful!! Lots of great looking houses along the lakefront and then at the top end, there were cherry and apple orchards, a winery and hops farms…they brew a vodka here from the hops. We wound up at Old Mission Lighthouse which is a white frame house w/ a lighthouse tower in front. It is also at the 45th parallel - exactly halfway between the equator and the North Pole (on the same line as Italy). We walked along the sandy beach in front for a while and had great views of the lake. There were lots of wildflowers and LOTS of rocks. The water was really, really shallow there (not over 6-8 " for a long way out) and at one point almost every rock had a seagull perched on top of it. Jerry used several of the rocks to make one of his balancing rock towers (we watched a guy in Sausalito doing these for entertainment for tourists and $$$$ )- and Jerry has tried it every chance he gets since then, only we are the tourists and there is no $$$!!! Sigh….

Drove back into town and went to a Wal Mart which was kind of unusual in that it is still under construction (they are converting it into a super Wal Mart), but is open anyway for business with somewhat limited choices, but lots of stuff…At least we did not have to stay on their parking lot!!! .No refrigerated stuff in yet, so we also had to stop at Meijer’s (the local Wal Mart type stores) and that was an experience!!! It was crazy and there was soooo much to choose from…it was like Sam’s and Costco on steroids….We finally got it all together and got back to Rv about 9 p.m. for a late dinner of whatever we could find. Spent some time on the computer and now am ready for bed!!!