September 3, 2008: Michigan

So today we made the road trip back to Traverse City in the daylight and we took Highway 131 for a faster route than the shore road we traveled last night. My recollections of the Michigan country side include corn fields and snow mobile crossings, fruit stands selling small local Red Haven peaches, red barns with shiny silver roofs and dairy cows, low foothills with mountain lodges, blue green spruce trees, pines, and maples with leaves just beginning to show their fall color in the woods. We stopped at the Cherry Street Market in Kalkaska and loaded the car with local peaches, blueberries and strawberries – we are going to have great breakfasts. There is always a silver lining to a storm cloud.

When we arrived at Best Buy, they were all ready for us and we are now the proud owners of a new UM150 USB Broadband Access capable modem with a Verizon software CD. Yea! Internet access is not only critical for my job, but also essential for keeping in touch with our real world (family and friends) and also keeping the blog current. My, How the world has changed.

After a hot dog at the local Dairy Queen, we headed back to the boat. Tom found a West Marine store on the way and opted to purchase an additional 30 foot 3/8 inch galvanized steel link anchor chain. I guess anchoring in 47 feet of water yesterday made the length and weight of the anchor chain more real as a boating asset. That gives us 55 feet of chain and 120 feet of anchor rope. Anyway, I was impressed that he was able to carry it out to the car.

Before returning our rental car this afternoon, we decided to drive through the historic Bay View Association. This is a United Methodist Church property established in 1875 as a religious education resort and it is a National History Landmark. This area is apparently a Methodist conference center and the homes and buildings are tax free and are only allowed to be open in the summer. Literally the Enterprise associate told us that the city turns off their electricity and water during the winter and all the homes are closed. As we drove through, we could see that people where closing up their places for the winter and many had their porches wrapped in clear plastic. The homes were very quaint with most having cottage names and they reminded us of our beloved Montreat conference center in Black Mountain, NC.

It is very windy today (winds at 15 miles/hour) so we are waiting til tomorrow to move on.