A Trip Report

Last year at this time, Mike and I were on our way up north to the U.P. for a football game.  The Semi Finals actually for the Frankfort Panthers and my boys were both on that team, although not scheduled to play.  They had just moved up after the J.V. season (successful season) had ended to be the Varsity’s “Junkyard Dogs”.  In other words, they were standing at the sidelines, while the older boys played.

I had never been across the bridge.  I didn’t ever want to cross the bridge. Bridges scare me.  For nearly 8 years I had to cross the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco every day and I did not like that one bit.

Here are some pictures for you.

There’s snow coming, can you see?

What a beautiful bridge and fun to cross.  It’s so much bigger than the Golden Gate and so much less traffic on it.

In the last 30 years I have taken many of these pictures of Mike. In all of them he’s younger than in this one, heehee

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Look how dark that sky is at noon!  Snow is on the way

Oh look, little cabins  

oh no, too much snow coming down all at once.  It’s a blizzard

Wow, the highway so close to the lake.

The Yooper Dome in all its glory.
We lost that game.   It was an ugly game.

We will miss making this trip this year because of the timing of our Disney trip. I never thought about it. I also messed up Marc with hunting.  We are leaving on opening day of deer season.  I am a bad mother.  Where are my priorities I ask you.

Mike and I were mostly on our own while in Marquette.  We loved being there.  It is a really fun, young town with some great bars and restaurants and so many young people. It actually reminds me of what Petaluma, CA was like in the early 80’s.

I lost my camera :(

Yesterday I lost my camera. Right in front of the high school. I didn’t notice it until I was almost home.  It is the only place this could have happened.  I drove right back into town and looked for it, hoping one of the many kids that were out there, when I picked up Marc, had found it and taken it to the office.  Sadly that didn’t happen.  Someone picked it up and took it home.

I went home and created a REWARDS poster.  It read as follows:

REWARD

$ 100.00

To anyone who can return my camera.

My camera fell out of my car’s passenger side on Wednesday,
November 11, at noon in front of the main doors at school.

Inside a soft, black case with a MickeyMouse head on the zipper is a metallic light blue digital camera.

A $ 100. bill is waiting for you in the school’s office, no questions asked.

I offered $ 100.00 for the return.  It was not returned when I checked today at 3PM.
Amazing that the offer of “$ 100.00 and no questions asked” wouldn’t bring that camera back. This means that I will be leaving on Sunday without my camera *sniff-sniff*

I’ll be back to post on Tuesday the 22nd.  Meanwhile, those boys that live here and their Grandmother are going to make sure that the house is alright. At least that’s what we are hoping for BUT, they are unpredictable – hehe…

Last Year’s Christmas Tree

The story of last year’s Christmas tree started more than 3 years ago.

Suddenly, like I have already told you, the elk ranch didn’t sell Christmas trees any longer and it was incredibly difficult to find decent trees.  The other thing was, I – together with my partner in crime, Carol Cherriez took care of the annual benefit Christmas Ball for the local hospital 2 years in a row and had no time to look for a tree and decorate it in time to make it worth it – it took a lot of time to pull that Ball together which always takes place on the first Saturday in December.  Needless to say, the Saturday after Thanksgiving came and went and no one thought of Christmas trees or anything else for that matter until the Ball was done and over with.

So, last year I didn’t fool around with the Ball but for some reason I could not get Mike to go with me to look for a tree.  Finally I got just a tiny bit bent out of shape and drove over to Victoria’s Floral Design in Benzonia and there was this HUGE blue spruce.  HUGE is maybe an understatement, the thing was huge.  We measured and I walked around it a few times. It had been cut and deposited in the driveway in front of the store.  It was laying halfway in the snow and it was frozen in place.  LuAnn was with me and there were 3 sales people plus a driver in the store – we had enough people to yank that tree loose and get it onto LuAnn’s truck.
Weeeell, it wasn’t as easy as that.  We yanked and yanked. We even broke some branches. After about 30 minutes of yanking, the tree was tied to the truck.  Yikes, it was very big.  We got it to the front porch and there we noticed how big that thing really was.
Hmmmm….”that’s easy” said Mike, we’ll cut as much of the tree as we want off the top and use the lower branches for decorations around the house. Great.  Mike measured and cut.
I did some chores and when I came back into the living room, there was ….what?  ”Where’s the tree?”  Ummmmm….I don’t know what Mike measured, I know that what I saw was the very top of the tree and then one layer of branches and that was that. The entire thing no higher than 4 feet including the 12 inch long stick that made up the top. You know, the stick that you make the angel sit on.  In our case it’s a spaceship not an angel.  I could actually look down on this “tree”.

Oh boy….what a disappointment.

So we got down some of the Christmas ornaments and doodads and I started to decorate the pitiful thing. And after a few of my crystal icicles on there, I could not go on.  I took off my gloves and sat in front of it and looked at it to see what could be done to save it.   I did that for about 4 days and then I took off the few icicles that I had hung on it and threw the tree with the tree stand outside, onto the porch, where it stayed until spring clean-up.

The funny thing is, none of my people ever mentioned the tree.

No one ever said anything about that tree not

being where they had left it for me, ready to be decorated.

They all thought it would go away if they didn’t say anything.

But it is still here.

In my mind.

In their minds.

Never to be forgotten and never to be repeated or else!

Muahahahahaha

No matter what, I am 100% certain that I will bake and decorate Christmas Cookies even this year.

YUMMMMMMM

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And we’ll have something yummy to drink too.

It’s hard work!

Putting the property to bed is quite a chore each November.  As you remember, this last spring we had a mess on our hands because the snow started falling weeks too early.  We had mountains of wet, nasty leaves to clear away which we usually don’t because the wind bows them all across the street into Sis’ field        

Last Sunday, we happened to see an infomercial  that sold an electric leaf blower/shredder/mulcher   <—not a word, I know.  I made Mike order it.  It came last Wednesday and I put it together.  They didn’t lie, it is lighter than a gallon of milk.  He came home from work, his eyes lit up, he went outside and gave that new toy a try.  After about 20 minutes he returned to tell me that it’s not all fun, it’s hard work actually!   uhuhhhh…

Here he is right now,  blowing, mulching, shredding;  has been for hours…
Don’t tell me he’s not having fun with the music blasting in his ears and the sun shining like it’s another summers day.

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We are almost ready for our trip!

Smokestack update

Now all the buildings have come down.  I took these pictures yesterday as the sun was going down

 

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The Smokestack – snuffed out!

As some of you know, the Smoke Stack was sold to a developer who is going to build an affordable housing complex, including a park.  That is very exciting for the citizens of Frankfort and Elberta, for shoppers it’s a sad thing.

The Smokestack was a consignment warehouse. It must have started off as a storage facility though, because it was called Smokestack Storage.

In the summer time you could find treasure there that came from some of the swankiest addresses in the area.  When we first moved here, the Smokestack was in its hay-day.  You could find handmade French dining room furniture, gold pocket watches, old irons, used paint,  screws, dressers, lamps, plates cups, skis, accordions, doors,  shelves, toys, books as well as the sailboat that won the 1925 Chicago to Mackinaw Island race and more and more and more.  The building was pretty dilapidated. It would rain in there, there were critters living in the old sofas and upholstered furniture and you always felt like the roof was going to cave in at any moment.  It didn’t matter, everyone went there anyway.

In winter they would store your boat or car or both there, if you have both   
Everyone was so excited when spring came and the doors to Sesame would open again.  Year after year and season after season it was fun to dig in there.  We actually had quite a few guests who came to stay at the Wayfarer specifically to go shopping there.  Nancy L. would come with her girlfriends on the last weekend of the season because then everything in the store would be half off.

So, now it’s gone. They tore it down yesterday.

The Smokestack how it looked a few weeks ago

And how it looked this morning at 7:54 am.

The brown building in the middle-left and the long building on the right need to come down still. I bet when I go to school this afternoon to deliver 100 cookies to the football team ( yikes)  those buildings will be gone.

Happy Friday everyone.
Tonight’s football game will be played in Frankfort against Manistee Catholic.  Not going to be easy, but we can do it.

Go Panthers!!

16

Today is TheBoyzz

16th Birthday

Not much more to say other than

Happy Birthday boys

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Good thing it’s today because I do not feel like cooking

We’re going out to dinner.

I sure hope they pick a good place to sit and enjoy some good food.

Small Town Elections

Election party at LuAnn’s house!  The usual suspects were at hand ready to have a drink and to demolish the hors d’ oeuvres.
Mind you, we do not live in Frankfort, Mike cannot vote there.  I can vote only in Germany because I am still not a citizen in this country, which is a surprise to many people and it raises several eyebrows now and then. But there you have it.  Things that happen in Frankfort effect all of us, so this was an exciting party to be at.

Myra brought  a bottle of cyanide and some cool aid (for those of you who remember way back)  in case the wrong people were re-elected

Thankfully we could drink champagne instead.

This morning I stopped by LuAnn’s  after dropping the boys off at school, to re-hash last night’s goings on and on my way out, I saw the sky dark gray in the west – the promise of snow is very real

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Those clouds must be bringing in the fish because the pier and the beach were busy with fishermen.

No Lights, no Problem

Yesterday, as I was standing in the checkout line at the grocery store, half way through my stuff, the power went out.  The generators kicked in but the phones were dead, including ATT cell phones.   I could not pay for my stuff – they took my signature and let me go on my merry way.

The power didn’t come on and the entire town was wondering about this all important Friday night football game.  Playoffs are upon us and we cannot miss a game!
Not to worry, this is “small town U.S.A”, as you all know, and the game went on only a little later than scheduled.  That may have been due to the ambulance getting there late.

The Traverse City Record-Eagle had the following to say:

” Darkness dominated Benzie County on Friday night due to power outages, but light was shining on a Frankfort 21-14 Division 8 football playoff victory over Mio.  …
Cummins Bridgeway of Traverse City had generators to Lockhart Field by 6:30, a half hour before kickoff and Olson electric of Frankfort had the field’s lights up and running.”
In the article Coach Stapleton was quoted as saying: ” Pretty incredible, the only place in the county that had power was at Lockhart Field…”.

Even with all that rain coming down sideways, the stands were loaded with fans.
For me the reason to go was that Tyler and the JV team, who have now moved up to Varsity, were suited up and may have a chance to play.  But after a quarter and a half of getting rained on from the south side, I made my way back to my car and moseyed ( <—–my spellcheck says that’s not a word)  on home to see how Marc was getting on all alone in the dark house, with only Bear to keep him company.

 

Pumpkins on Parade

I decided to go and see what Ed Moody is up to this week, with Halloween coming and all.  Ed Moody (google him) is the premier pumpkin carver around these parts of the world.

The rain has finally stopped, so this would be a great opportunity to take some pictures.    Ed was actually working on one of the pumpkins as I drove up.

I asked Ed if he ordered the pumpkins or if they were offered to him and he said “neither”.  He goes to all 5 weigh-ins here in Michigan and gets them there.  The 5th weigh-in is right here in Frankfort during Fall Festival always the second weekend in October.

Ed and his wife live on Leelanau Avenue and he estimates that about 15000 visitors come by during the season.  Also he says that they give out a little over 1000 full size candy bars on Halloween night

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He fashioned the teeth from the white pumpkins laying in front of the big head and he sticks them in place with toothpicks. Ed says that they swell with the moisture from the pumpkin and therefore really hold the “teeth” in place.  Oh and he works with only a fillet knife and a boning knife, nothing else.

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And then, across the street from Ed Moody’s house, there is this haunted garden full of headless creatures:

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Back again in Ed’s front yard there is a big pumpkin that Dr. Franke started to carve. Not bad for only his 2nd. pumpkin, but for a dentist, the teeth leave a lot to be desired, heheh

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And all this carving gets done under a golden canopy and with woodpeckers looking for food

 

Get out your pumpkin carving tools and get to work people.  Email me the pictures of your works of art, I’ll post them here on the blog