Mackinaw City 7/8/2016

After a short drive (5 hours) from Dearborn, we arrived at our next stopping place, Mackinaw City, MI. Mackinaw City sits at the tip of the Lower Michigan Peninsula, at the place where Lake Huron meets Lake Michigan. The Straits of Mackinac (pronounced Mackinaw), connect those two Great Lakes. Mackinaw City is the northernmost city on the Lower Peninsula.

On the way, we passed lots of flat farmland, punctuated by Sea Shell City in Cheboygan, home of the Man Killing Giant Clam. What A country!

Our campground sits directly on Lake Huron, with great views of the 5 mile long Mackinac Bridge that connects Mackinaw City with St. Ignace on the Upper Peninsula (U.P.). Yesterday, we arrived, set up, walked the campgound, then had a glass of wine (or 2) and dinner. Soooooooo stressful.

Today we woke to thunder and weather predictions for nasty thunderstorms, heavy rain, lightning and potentially damaging hail (there was hail 3" in diameter just south of here). We opted to take the opportunity to go into Cheboygan to do laundry. While thunder, lightning, and pouring rain greeted us on our return, it subsided within an hour, and we then set out to check out Mackinaw City. Mackinaw City is a tourist's heaven: shoppes (as distinguished from shops) galore, restaurants, and hotels-motels, like a thousand other tourist places on the water.

The bridge itself is quite the construction marvel. It is 5 miles long, the longest suspension bridge with two towers between anchorages in the western hemisphere.

Later in the afternoon, as the weather improved somewhat, we drove over to the McGulpin lighthouse, completed in 1869, as a lighthouse on the Straits of Mackinac, and walked down to Lake Huron from the lighthouse. Interesting history.

Since the weather will be improving tomorrow, we will head to Mackinac Island which sits in Lake Huron at the eastern end of the Straits of Mackinac between the Upper and Lower Michigan Peninsulas.

The Henry Ford Museum 7/7/2016

The chair Lincoln was sitting in when he was shot at Ford's Theater

What can everyday objects created by ordinary people tell us about new ways to solve problems and make life better? A great deal, Henry Ford believed. To show it, he amassed a vast collection of artifacts documenting the genius of the American people—and then created a nine-acre showcase in Dearborn, Michigan in which to share it. Today, this museum is a remarkable place that shows us the breakthroughs, big and small, that have made our world what it is today.

This museum has it all: George Washington's camp cot, one of the first McDonald's signs, a HUGE Allegheny locomotive (the most powerful steam locomotive ever built), and a Dewitt Clinton locomotive (looks like a locomotive pulling a bunch of stagecoach bodies) from the early 1830s, a fabulous collection of autos, including the Kennedy assassination limo, agricultural equipment spanning centuries, a display with actual models of power plants throughout the ages, the only surviving Buckminster Fuller Dymaxion house,  and SO much more. I loved this page from the White Castle employee handbook:

Probably my favorite item is a vial of Edison's last breath. If you're ever in this part of the country, go out of your way to visit!

Greenfield Village 7/5/2016

Another picture-perfect day greeted us as we departed the grey house yesterday. We rolled through the hills of NY and PA, through the home of Lucille Ball (Jamestown, NY, home of the Lucy and Desi memorial bridge and also to the Lucy Desi Center for Comedy), and through the farmlands of the midwest to our stopping place for 3 nights in Ypsilanti, MI.

Today we visited Greenfield Village, an 80-acre outdoor museum consisting of various historic buildings Henry Ford assembled from around the USA. At the museum, there are 83 authentic historic structures (disassembled at their original places and reassembled at Greenfield) , from the lab where Thomas Edison developed the lightbulb to the workshop where the Wright Brothers

developed their airplane, and the building where Abraham Lincoln practiced law. You can visit the home where Noah Webster wrote the first American dictionary and the farmhouse where Henry Ford grew up. To keep things authentic, Ford transported Thomas Edison's Menlo Park, NJ lab to Dearborn, along with 6 railroad cars full of NJ soil so the lab could sit on NJ soil. Throughout the village are actors and interpreters who bring the history of those places to life. According to Henry Ford, "We ought to know more about the families who founded this nation, and how they lived. One way to do that is to reconstruct as nearly as possible the conditions under which they lived." He did that wonderfully at Greenfield Village.

Grayson 7/4/2016

Thanks to the hospitality of Granny Cartwright and the hard work of others to prepare the grey house for our visit, we enjoyed 3 nights there within a short drive of all the festivities for Grayson's christening. My brother, Steve (Father Steve to others) joined us there.

The christening was perfect, and Grayson himself seemed to enjoy is as he smiled broadly as Steve poured the christening water on his forehead.

We capped off the ceremony with a wonderful family gathering at Jenna's mom's home a short distance from the church. The weather was perfect (mid 80s, dry and sunny), the food was great (chicken barbecue and all the fixings), and Grayson smiled or slept through it all.

We were so happy that our niece, Barbara (born 1 month after Alex), came for the christening with her sons Pierce (3 years old) and Elvis (born just 2 weeks after Grayson).

Grayson and Elvis

It was great that another cousin, Kristen, also took the long drive up with her family (husband Mario and 2 children Marion and Giuliana) to celebrate with us.

Sunday we were invited to attend a Cartwright family Independence day celebration at Silver Lake in the town of Perry, NY. The party was hosted by a Cartwright cousin, Terry, and his wife Joan, whose gorgeous home sits directly on the lake. We watched as the sun set, and then were treated to an amazing fireworks display personally arranged and coordinated by Terry. It was the perfect cap to a lovely weekend. Sweet Grayson, feeling all the love around, slept through it all.

Glass 6/30/2016

It had been at least 20 years since we had visited the Corning Glass Museum, so we had little idea how much the museum had grown and changed over the years. What a delight. I am always amazed that there are people who can not only conceive of beautiful things but can make them come to life! The museum had everything from a glass sculpture of a dress hanging as if on a human form--so realistic--to gorgeous abstract objects like the cube made of shards of glass.

While at the museum, we had the opportunity to see how glass art is made in various forms. We saw blown glass, and fire fused glass forms. And we were treated to a demonstration by a master glass artist who created a fantastic layered color glass vase. See some of this for yourself here: https://goo.gl/photos/42eZyjh9kdPh1FVz8  Check out the photo descriptions to explain the photos.

One of the benefits to RV "camping" is that we get to meet lots of people along the way. This evening we met a couple from the Westchester NY area that was heading out west to Idaho with their family--in a 45 foot bus towing a car. Makes our little 28 footer look petite... We also met a delightful guy from LA who was headed home with his wife after a 2 week trip up to New England.

Tomorrow we head to the Rochester area to attend Grayson's christening.

On the road again! June 30, 2016

After a tumultuous April and May, with the sale of our NH home and contents, and the purchase of a new FL home, purchase of a new(er) RV, and managing the logistics of moving 2 cars and an RV to the new home, we're traveling again. We shipped the POD to FL with what was left after we sold or gave away everything else , drove to FL in our larger car,  unpacked when the POD arrived, and then took a few days to breathe. 

The neighborhood where we landed seems to be really welcoming, and there are 3 couples (at least) on the street that hail from NH. The neighbors on either side of us are from NJ and MI. Our property backs up to conservation land, and the first morning in our new digs served up a surprise. We woke to a warm, lovely morning to hear what sounded like people talking in our back yard. Curious, Ray got up to take  look. While he didn't see anything, what he heard out on the lanai was clearly the sound of feral pigs roaming the woods. Apparently we arrived in mating season. So that morning (and a few others), we sat on the lanai, read the paper and listened to the chirping of the birds, and the grunting of the pigs. 

Camped in Corning, NY

Our realtor recommended someone to us that, in our absence, will reliably check on our home twice a week, and is an all-around handyman. He brought us to the airport for our return to NH to pick up the RV (which we left in NH with our small car). 

Now that we have the RV, we are on the road again! First stop is Corning, NY. We're staying in a lovely campground that is quiet and looks out on the hills of NY. Today we are going to the Corning Museum.

Different but the same 1/6/2016

We arrived at our new digs on Monday, and are very pleased with them. Our 3 br, 2.5 ba townhome is clean and quiet and has all the amenties of home. Wifi is fine, and TV channels plenty. We have a screened in porch outside the living room, as well as a small deck outside the bedroom. Those outside spaces look out on a wooded area.

This resort is located on the south west side of  Orlando, in a quieter and less traffic-intensive area than where we stayed last year. That's a bonus. But we have found that pedestrian activity is still as insane as we saw last year. When returning from the grocery store on Monday evening, we were traveling down a road with a 55 mph speed limit, with little traffic, when about 50 feet ahead of us (that space quickly diminishing), we spotted a pedestrian wearing dark clothes and with dark hair crossing directly in front of us. We narrowly missed picking him off. Needless to say, both our hearts skipped a beat. In a parking lot yesterday, a little old lady was wandering aimlessly talking on her cell phone, oblivious to the fact that she was blocking cars from coming and going. These people are nuts...