Day 61

The Deer Ranch

Jul 6, 2013, 10:54 AM

This morning we went to The Deer Ranch in St. Ignace. It was a very nice little place and they boast they are the oldest known deer exhibit. When you go in they ask you if you'd like to purchase carrots or crackers so you can feed the deer. Thank goodness Steve had the foresight to ask them, which do the deer prefer. They have so many deer in this place and lots of babies. When you walk in the deer come right up to the fence for the carrots. They LOVED the carrots. Again, and I can't stress this enough, thank Steve for asking which they prefer! (Some of this has been added by guess who.) There was a woman that came in with a little girl and they had gotten the crackers. Steve was there giving the deer carrots and the first one we came to wanted nothing to do with the crackers. Of course the little girl looked completely crestfallen so Steve handed her a couple carrots and the deer came right to her and she was thrilled. The deer were so friendly. I guess so since everyone they encounter have food for them. It was cool. We had a great time. We were just about to leave thinking we'd seen it all when I saw there were babies in an area in the back. The grass was almost as tall as they were and we hadn't seen them before, so we walked back. Well I heard the most heart wrenching sound I'd EVER heard in my entire life. The baby deer were crying. Oh my God in heaven. It was so sad to hear. The babies were separated from the other deer and they were crying. Steve thought they wanted bottles. We had been asked not to feed the babies the carrots cause they were still being bottle fed. I thought the little babies we'd seen with the rest of the deer were the ones they were talking about, but oh no there were three of the most adorable babies and they wanted momma. How cool this little place was. We wanted to get a pin from this place. It was technically a zoo and we have been getting a pin at each zoo we come to, but they had NO pins. Come on really. This would have been an easy sell, but no pins. They did however have a penny press. Now if you have been following along since the very beginning you will remember the woman at the Atlanta Zoo that was the frequent visitor, she had pins from different zoos she was going to and she had told us that some of the smaller zoos she'd visited that didn't have pins, she would do a penny press and turn it into a pin. So I knew we were in good when we saw the penny press. Of course now I'm going to have to get the pin backs at a craft store somewhere along the way. No biggie, I can always be talked into a trip to a craft store. Again, thank Steve for making this a great stop!

Mackinaw City

Jul 6, 2013, 1:24 PM

We stopped at a Mackinaw Bridge viewing area to get some nice photos. It is a beautiful bridge. We talked with some nice kids that were asking me about the cameras I had. They were a bit envious. We chatted for a few minutes. They were really nice kids. After we moved on we went to Mackinaw City in search of pizza for lunch. I have been jonesing for pizza and since I have a wonderful husband he made sure we got some. Again, thank Steve for this. Oh my gosh, Mackinaw City was just like St. Ignace, nothing but tourist shops but we did find a pizza parlor, so I was happy. After our pizza we walked around a little bit, I spotted a wine shop that was doing wine tastings, so we walked down. Steve found a new wine he liked and we had a good time talking to the owner. I thought it was odd that they charged $5.00 for a wine tasting, you got to pick three different wines to try, but what the heck. Steve is enjoying finding new wines and how else do you do it if you don't try different wines. You sure don't want to buy a whole bottle then decide you really don't like it. Me I have no idea about wine since I don't drink at all!, but wine yuck!! The owner was nice, he gave Steve several additional wines to try, but Steve liked the first one he tried. A blueberry wine. He liked a blueberry wine when we did a wine tasting in Chiefland, Florida a while ago. So we bought one bottle, this guy was pricey, but you get to keep your wine glass. 

Oh and did I mention the caramel corn, I found a place with really good caramel corn and I couldn't help myself. I just had to get some. I love caramel corn, but it has to be good caramel corn, and when I get the good stuff I will it till I get SICK!!! I have no will power at all. Note from Steve, she is sick as I edit this. So I think this will be it for tonight, I hear a million little voices calling me. They are saying "we are right her in the cabinet, come get us, you know you want to." I hate it when they call me, I will just have to go tell them to be quiet. Bye all, if you don't hear from me again, it's because I have slipped into a coma from overdosing on caramel corn.

Day 60

Seeing What We Can See

Jul 5, 2013, 4:09 PM

WOW officially two months today we have been on the road!!!! Our time in Cedarville, Michigan is quickly coming to a close. We leave on Monday. It seems like we've only just gotten here, not a week ago. We wanted to drive along Lake Michigan a little today, so we started out after a slow morning. We weren't in any particular hurry, we thought we might get to do some hiking. There really isn't much along this stretch of northwestern Lake Michigan, except wilderness. There are beaches all along the highway, you can just park your car and trek down to the water. There are a few road side campgrounds. They are very primitive, but they are almost right on the beach. That would be really cool, but I am not a "primitive" kind of girl. I need (and want) all my facilities. 

We found a nice little place to have lunch. Our waiter, God love'm, it seemed like last week he might have been the busboy. He was very pleasant and he was working all the time, but you could just tell he was out of his comfort zone. When he wasn't clearing a table or taking an order or delivering food I could see him hunched over a calculator scribbling like heck on the checks. He had a cut high on his check bone like maybe he'd walked into a fist a few days ago. You could tell he was trying hard though and my heart went out to him. We were very patient and we left an adequate tip, even though the service really didn't qualify for a decent tip.

After lunch we continued on and found the Garlyn Zoo. We weren't going to bother going to this one. We didn't get a discount with our Philadelphia Zoo membership and it looked like it might be a mom and pop kind of operation, but Steve wanted to check it out. As we suspected, it was a mom and pop place, but it was nice. It was very small but the animals seemed well kept and the people were very friendly. We did see one thing I've NEVER seen before. We went over to one of the cages and there was a dead animal on the ground. I was shocked thinking they'd let one of their animals die and then leave it, or they weren't even aware that it had passed, then a tiger poked his head up, GROSS!!! This was dinner for the tiger. Yuck!!!!! I have never seen a zoo do that before. A guy that works there or one of the owners, I don't know what, was standing there. We found out, talking to him, that they'd just gotten the tigers, there were two, on Monday. They had them spayed and just yesterday they started coming around, so they put a dead goat in the cage. The owner's thought the tigers would have devoured more of the goat but so far the tigers were playing with the carcass more than anything. While we were watching the one tiger grabbed the goat and was dragging it around a bit. I asked if they'd put the goat in there alive or dead. I wasn't sure if they were trying to keep the tigers entertained or what, I've never seen a zoo give the large cats anything more than something resembling ground beef. This was a new experience for me. After that the rest of the zoo was uneventful and just a typical zoo.  Spanky was thrilled we did another zoo, he said too much time had gone by since the last one.  

After the zoo we drove some more. This is such a beautiful area. The road we were on was taking us right along the Lake Michigan shore. We stopped at overlooks when we saw them. We spotted a boat ramp and went back to have a look. It was very nice. Steve was jealous that it was such a perfect boat ramp and nobody was using it. He said in Florida you'd be waiting for sure to launch. I reminded him that his experiences have all been on the weekends, when we get home and he takes the boat out on weekdays it will be very different (hopefully). We drove on a little more and saw a sign for a recreation area so we turned in. Steve said he was really in the mood for a chocolate milkshake. How can I turn that sort of thing down. So we drove through this little vacation town, Curtis, on a lake, I'm not sure which one, it may even be Lake Curtis for all I know. Don't you know, they have an old fashioned ice cream parlor. We had the best pre-dinner desserts. I haven't told Steve yet, but I don't really need dinner after that. I had a sundae, it was big and wonderful. Now we are on our way back to the RV. Hopefully the wifi or hot spot will be working better tonight so I can upload my blog. The next location boasts cable TV, oh that will be nice, and wifi, but then this place said they have wifi too, and they do it just doesn't work well enough. What're ya gonna do?

Day 59

Happy 4th of July 

Jul 4, 2013, 1:13 PM

Well today did NOT start out well!!!! We are having technical issues that started last night. The Verizon Hot Spot is not working, the campground wifi is overloaded so we are not able to get online with any reliability. I spent over an hour this morning trying to fix our problem with the Verizon technical support people. The only answer they give me is that in a normally low load area there is a an unusual amount of load with all of these extra people in town for the holiday. They think that is the problem, but they are putting a service ticket in anyway and should know I should know something in 24-48 hours. Hopefully by then this will have worked itself out anyway. 

So before diving into the computer problems this morning I got up late, that was nice, I made buckwheat pancakes for breakfast (they were a little disappointing), I made Steve his usual cappuccino, steve grilled some steaks and baked potatoes, it was just a quiet day. We did make some changes to our coming travel plans. We were heading to Wisconsin after leaving Cedarville Michigan, but now we are going to extend our stay in Michigan. After Monday we are heading to Munising Michigan till the 12th, then on to Wisconsin from there. There were so many things in the Munising area that we wanted to see and it is about a three hour drive from here. That's a little much, so since our plans are not set in stone we changed them. Cool huh!!!!!!

We have been fighting the Internet connection all day long with no real luck. So now at 9 PM we just wait for 11 PM, for the fireworks to start. Good night all, have a safe 4th, don't be stupid with fireworks!!!!

Day 58

Mackinac Island

Jul 3, 2013, 5:26 PM

What a wonderful day!!! I have to say this trip has been an absolute joy, beyond my wildest dreams and really we've only just begun. We left the RV this morning at the exact time I'd wanted. When I put our destination in the GPS it said our arrival time will be 10:33 AM. Oh damn, we are going to miss the 10:30 ferry and have to wait till 11:00. Oh well that will give us plenty of time to get parked, get camera equipment, whatever and we won't be rushed. When we pulled up the ferry still hadn't left. I thought for sure it would be pulling out. Steve went to get tickets while I got my stuff, that's when I heard, "Last boarding call for the 10:30 ferry to Mackinac Island." Can you believe this? We haven't missed it at all. So we are able to get right on, and thank God there were still inside seats. It was a little cool and I didn't really want to sit outside if I didn't have to. The trip over in the ferry took about 15 minutes and it was really a nice ride. 

When we got off the boat oh my gosh there was a sea of people, carriages, bicycles, and gift shops. It wasn't what I expected at all. I was expecting something much more laid back and refined. It was pretty much like any other tourist haven in that regard, however where Mackinac Island is very different is in that there are NO motorized vehicles. There have never been motorized vehicles allowed on the island. This is why I think my expectations were different. We walked a little bit, then went down to the beach. It was so pretty! It was a perfect sunny bright day. It was warm, but not hot at all, it was clear so you could see out over the water, although when you look out over the water in some directions all you see to the horizon is water, but beauty it had in abundance. The beach, where we went down to the water, was not sand, it was rocky, but not big rocks, I guess you would classify them as big pebbles. They were almost harder to walk in than the sand at the beach. They shifted under your feet. And there were knats all around. They didn't seem to be the biting kind, and they stayed low around our ankles, but there were clouds of them. 

After walking for a little while we went back to the main tourist street and got on one of the horse carriage tours. This should have been about a 90 minute tour and we stretched it out to several hours. We were taken through downtown first then wound our way up to the Grand Hotel. There you get off the first horse drawn carriage and you can browse through gift shops they have at this carriage station or you can go into a butterfly conservatory so we got a little snack and then went to see the butterflies. This was small, but the butterflies were all over. Steve had them landing on his hat, I had them on my camera and one even walked around on my arm for a while. It was kind of cool, plus just watching the little ones reach for the butterflies or squeal when they see one is just so sweet I could have spent hours in there alone. From there you get on a different carriage, the first carriage was pulled by two draft horses, Steve said they were Percherons, I have no idea so we will go with that, the second one is larger and is pulled by three. The second stage of the carriage ride is through the Mackinac State Park. It goes past Arch Rock, that's a natural hole formation in the limestone. It really was a sight to see. Then on to the fort. We enjoyed the fort if for no other reason than the views. The views were spectacular, but now we are getting hungry for lunch. It was already 3 PM, so yeah it was past time. We went back to the carriage pick up spot and we got on the next carriage. This carriage driver mentioned some of the rankings for different places. He told us Joann's had the best fudge, the Yankee Rebel was ranked #3 restaurant. The #2 restaurant was a breakfast only place so we weren't interested. He also mentioned that the fudge places were included in the best places to eat, so actually the best restaurant for a meal other than breakfast would be the Yankee Rebel. So that's where we went for lunch. It was sooooooo good!! I really liked it. After this we walked around some more then, that's it for me. The bikes and carriages and kids on bikes all over the street, it was time to go, plus we were well fed and tired from walking around. It was time to go. 

The ride back on the ferry was perfect. We sat on the outside so I could get just a few last photos. The sun was shining and it was warm enough to really enjoy the ride. All in all it was a great day. We are home now, so I'm going to say goodnight all. I'll check in with you again tomorrow. Have a happy and safe 4th of July!!!!!!!! 

Day 57

Exhaustion Has Set In

Jul 2, 2013, 9:04 PM

The plan for the day got quickly set aside. Last night getting home and to bed after 1AM just did me in. I couldn't get up early enough this morning to make going to Mackinac Island worthwhile. We have been going, going, going and even on days when we decide we are going to relax for the day we are still busy going. So today it came to a halt!

We didn't get out of bed till late and we did pretty much nothing all day and it was wonderful!! Steve did some work on the computer and I worked on photos from yesterday that I didn't even look at when we got home. Except for dinner that was the sum total of our accomplishments for the day. So there's not much to report today. Sorry guys, we are planning on picking up the crazy pace again tomorrow. Right now we are watching a program on Mt. Rushmore. We plan to get out to see the sight, so finding this show was real providence. It will sure give us a better appreciation when we see the mountain for ourselves. 

Goodnight all!!

Day 56

July Already, Can You Believe It

Jul 1, 2013, 8:24 AM

I am shocked that this is the first day of July. Where has the time gone. We have been on the road almost two months already and it sure doesn't feel like it. Although now that I give life to that thought in some ways it feels like we have been gone forever. I miss our Happy Zone friends, and the time spent with Kim and that gang seemed to fly by, and now it feels like we have been gone for so long from them. So I don't know, I guess I am conflicted in so many ways, that's life isn't it? The good with the bad, the ups with the downs. . . Oh whoa, wait a minute, I am getting way too heavy here (and no I am NOT talking about my weight, so I better get no snarky comments from the peanut gallery)!!

Today's plans are not set yet. We are hoping we can get reservations for a dinner cruise leaving from Sault St. Marie. If we can we will go as far north as we can in the USA and then cross over into Canada. How cool will this be. I'll get a stamp on that damn passport that required extracting blood from a stone in order to get approval, at least that was how it seemed at the time. Anyway, if we can't get reservations for today we will go to Mackinac Island. Either plan has me chomping at the bit to get started. I just have to wait for the Soo Locks Boat Tour people to get in for the day so I can call. Hurry up 10:00 AM. 

Jul 1, 2013, 11:38 AM

YIPPEEEEE!!!!!! I was able to get us reservations for tonight's dinner cruise. This is even better than I had planned. Today is Canada Day, who knew, so instead of the dinner cruise taking off at 5:30 PM, for a two and a half hour cruise and dinner, the boat leaves at 7 PM and after it gets back to the dock you stay on board for the fireworks display from the Canadian side of the river. How exciting is this going to be? So we are finally on our way, we have our passports, jackets, cause it is going to get down right cold up here tonight (in the 40's), and we are off for a fun filled day and night. Don't worry I'll bring you all up to speed later.

Jul 1, 2013, 11:24 PM

What a day, what a day, what a day!!!!! We were in Canada for lunch and back to the US for a dinner cruise on the St. Mary river, then docking to see the Canada Day fireworks from the boat. It could not have been any better. Going into Canada we crossed the International Bridge and we were sitting for a good 30 minutes or more waiting to get through, then we went to the Sault St. Marie, Ontario waterfront park. We found a nice little place to have lunch and the weather was so pleasant we sat outside to eat. After lunch we went to the Bushplane Museum. Steve was very interested in seeing that and what the hell we had time to kill. We wanted to start back over to the US side about 4 PM. The dinner cruise started at 7, we were supposed to be there by 6:30, we weren't sure how far it was after we got back to the US and we were afraid it would take another 30 minutes or more to get through the boarder. Well don't you know we drove up waited behind three cars, they asked us how long we'd been in Canada, was our place of residence Florida, did we have any purchases to declare, OK, see ya!! That was it. We got more of a grilling getting into Canada. So we puttered around till it was time to go the boat.

The dinner cruise was fantastic. We had the best time. We sat at a table with a young couple that had just gotten married October 5, that was such a coincidence. They were so sweet and almost everyone had finished eating and they were going up top and the four of us were still sitting talking. We went up top and the cruise was really nice. We went down the St. Mary River a ways, then came back up the river and went through the Canadian Soo Lock. That was a wild thing. The other side of the lock was Lake Superior. At that point we were leaving Lake Huron going into Lake Superior, don't ask me how we got from the St. Mary River to Lake Huron, I just report the facts, anyway at this place between the two lakes Lake Superior is 21' higher than Lake Huron. This is where the locks come into play. You go up to these big, huge, doors. The lock master opens the doors, and closes them after you, then they fill this chamber you're in with water till you come up to meet the surface of Lake Superior. It was cool!!! It only took about 10 maybe 15 minutes. Steve and I had speculated about this earlier in the day. I wondered how long it took to fill the locks. I had no concept at all of what it would take. Minutes, hours, days, I didn't think it would be days, that didn't seem realistic. I didn't realize our cruise was going to be taking us through the locks. 

On the way back we went through the American lock. That was a bit more weird. You could feel the boat rocking just a bit from side to side as the water was being taken out of the lock. Going up, you really couldn't tell you were getting higher till you had risen quite a bit. The American side was much faster. We went down river after we left the lock to a place where they tied up the boat and we waited for the fireworks to begin. The Canadians put on one hell of a fireworks show and it was so perfect watching from the boat. We had great seats, a completely unobstructed view, we were outside on the deck and very comfortable. It was wonderful. Enjoy the pictures. Tomorrow we are going to head out to Mackinac Island. I can't wait!!