The plan was to get to Detroit around five-ish, and we rolled up through the Downriver suburbs listening to a fitting soundtrack, "The Best of Cream." Then in our excitement we missed an exit to I-75 north and played cultural anthropologist on downtown streets, watching Tiger fans walk to Comerica Park on a beautiful Saturday afternoon. I was never an Eastside guy, so winding up through the city was not a trip down memory lane as much as a reminder that the city is alive and well despite widespread belief to the contrary.
The Spartan Inn motel in downtown Rochester was not as Spartan as I expected but just Spartan enough to be cheap, clean, and very adequate. Gven and I had ample time to get dressed and go to our nephew Todd's wedding reception at the Fieldstone Winery in downtown Rochester. My sister Anna Banana Golly Gosh and brother in law Fred Gosh were in fine form, enjoying the celebration and very at home among both sides of the family - the Gollys and the Goshes - which mixed politely before settling in at separate tables.
I love how revealing of character these events are, especially when the person you're talking to is guarded, standoffish, distant, or defensive while ranting about everything and everybody else, telling you all you need to know about the subject without putting their cards on the table. Maggie and Ted Gosh-Carpenter, on the other hand, looked me in the eye and made real statements about their real lives, and I appreciate that.
Out of towners gathered at the Gosh-Golly home for a delightful after-party and an unnecessary additional glass of wine, and the cool evening lent itself to more intimate conversation, first in the family room and then the the deck: Android vs. Mac, tablet vs. phone, McGraw vs. Pearson, and the future of online educational content vs. print.
We reconvened for breakfast on the deck, a fabulous array of coffee cakes, scones, souffles, and fresh fruit served by Anna Banana and her sister in law Judy of Ludington and Florida. A relaxed morning gave me an opportunity to get to know Fred's Uncle Ralph and Judy's husband Heinz as they traded sailing stories. My brother Petro Golly wore black jeans and a black T-shirt in preparation for his flight to Dusseldorf for a metals trade show later in the day. It must be a German thing.
Gven and I got back in our new black Escape and headed north to begin part two of our Michigan weekend. Tent, check. Cooler, check. Bikes, check. Cots, check. Firewood, check. I guess we're ready for the north woods. We established our base camp under the same huge pine tree as last year and cooked brots for supper.
The weather was a little sketchy when I got up the next morning to make coffee and oatmeal. Still hoping it would warm up, we visited Lot 1000 - our piece of property - and went to the stables. The young woman running the place saddled us up with a couple of easy-going horses, and we went for an hour-long ride out from the barn through some pine and poplar woods, down a long incline to a bottom full of spruce trees along the Manistee River headwaters. Amanda had been studying vet tech at a college in Cadillac but dropped out to go to massage therapy school, and now she wants to be an equine massage therapist. She also knows something about horticulture, and we all had a nice conversation while riding slowly up the trail back to the barn.
I was hoping for a bike ride in the afternoon, but the weather didn't hold, so instead of gliding down the road to Pencil Lake I got depressed and sat in the tent out of the rain. Gven suggested a movie and a pizza, but I didn't see the point of driving seven hours to the pristine Northern forest for a bad movie about a "Bad Teacher" at the strip mall multiplex, but there weren't many options, so we ended up at a Mexican restaurant in Gaylord, which was okay in a summer camp/tourist kind of way.
It rained some more that night. We got up early and went into Mancelona for a big breakfast at our favorite log cabin donut shop, Bo Jack's. The waitress's disposition had improved a lot since last summer. The 70 percent chance of rain showed no sign of stopping, so we just kept going southwest on US 131 and cruised right on through Traverse City on M 72 until we got to Lake Michigan. It was still cool but had stopped raining when we walked along the windy beach and stopped at the Maritime Museum. My photos don't begin to do justice to the lovely old boats restored and displayed as a little slice of Great Lakes history.
We meandered up the pinky nail of the mitten as the weather cleared up, and in the precious little resort town of Glen Arbor we passed a kayak rental shop, so we stopped on a whim to ask questions. Ten minutes later we were in a van being dropped off on the Crystal River, learning by doing. Our two-seater handled much like a canoe, but we still managed to hit a couple of low-hanging trees as we gradually figured out how not to paddle against each other, how to anticipate the rocks and turns and eddies. There were three very short portages and almost nobody else on the little river, yet we made it challenging enough all by ourselves.
Finding the right place for a burger after that spontaneous adventure was another formidable challenge, but we rose to the occasion, and the whitefish burger at the place on the corner was excellent.
I had my sights set on Frankfort to the south, where I had read about a coop retirement community, so we drove way down M22, which took a long time, and got to the pretty little town after all the shops had closed. We settled for a weak cup of coffee and an over-embellished piece of pie at the Betsie Inn and walked down to the beach, which was beautiful.
The next morning, our last, the weather cleared up and warmed up, as it always does, so I was able to get in my ritual dip in Pencil Lake and revel in the clean, quiet lakeness of it. Then we came home to agendas, schedules, font issues, and a status conference call. Maybe next time we'll take a whole week.
