Vacation in Gulf Shores at Best Deal in Gulf Shores! La Bella Vita!

What a treat! It was my first longer winter absence from the North's cold and snow! It was winter cool but certainly no snow was seen on the Gulf of Mexico. Only the white sand beaches were white ! I spent hours on the condo's balcony sunning myself! The beach was a constantly changing walkway! The backyard tropical area was a refreshing bit of the areas summer in winter! The boat docks provided many hours of bird watching. I will do it again. My condo was named the La Bella Vita by its owner. They post more details on http://www.vrbo.com/196958 where one can find specs, phone numbers, and pictures. I strongly recommend this unit! South facing balconys are not always available but this one has one! I would love to spend some summery time there some day too.

Oh Christmas Tree! All set for The Clas Man to drop a new pickup truck under it!

Thanksgiving 2007

At my age its hard to say what and who in what order I should be offering to thank on this Thanksgiving Day. I guess the fact that I still live to talk about it is one thing. Thank you Baxter and Accredo and Drs Smoot and Bruner and DCH and the staff there for your help. Thank you Mr G and company for your support and help and for the fun we had with the horses. And thank you, family and friends, for your support during those scary times!

I've managed nearly a year now in retirement and have no regrets that I couldn't continue working. Thanks to all and everything that made and continues to make the lazy life possible.
I've been thinking about family and am happy and thankful that all of you are safe and sound and doing your things. Thanks to all and everything that makes that possible. Of course we keep Grandma J in our thoughts!
Of course there are many more thanks to give but that would take a book!

I'll conclude by saying thanks again to Mike and Lupa for today's meal and company. Knowing you two is one of life's special treats!

Oh, Halloween is Soon Gone and Oh, Christmas Will Be Next in Line!

Over the last few months my Christmas tree has grown rather top heavy! I need suggestions on types of decorations. (Cheap ones because I might not even trim it since I won't be around!) We'll let the Norfolk Island Pine grow for an other year and see where its at a year from now. I might have to call an arborist to keep it somewhat shaped. Or as I said before maybe I'll take her to Cost Cutters!

Camping and Boat Riding

Well, I went camping! Haven't been camping in years and years! I think its been about 30 some years since I slept in a campground. I now have the feel for it and I think I'll go again. I camped at the Munising City Campgrounds among the big boys and the smaller boys and the even smaller boys and even close to some tents! My Grand Caravan is a bit tight but I lived in a Volvo cab for 10 years so I can make it in the minivan parked next to a picnic table and a fire pit. Parked is the word I like! I watched the kids playing, cooked over an open fire, read some of the current selection; yes, you read right, I read! Hadn't done that for a long time either!

The black in the middle is the Grand Caravan at our campsite! The Munising City Campgrounds comes highly recommended by me. It has lots of room, and its clean, and quiet and Munising Bay and a nice beach is only a few steps from any of the campsites.
First I played in the sand for awhile! It was fun! Actually that is not me! Fooled you though didn't I! I forgot my sand pail and shovel so I just watched the young man having fun with his!
Then I decided to take a boat ride to the Pictured Rocks. The east coast of Munising Bay and further north the coast of Lake Superior proper is a national park. It's the Pictured Rocks National Lake Shore and extends about 42 miles from Munising to Grand Marais. If you would like to hike there is a trail running the entire 42 miles for you to enjoy! Here is an example of the "pictured" rocks. The colors are caused by ground water seeping out of the cliffs which are about 200 or more feet high. Reds are caused by iron, greens by copper, white by limestone and black by manganese. The basic formations here are sandstone.

See the two eyes peering at you? Actually, if you look hard you should see two sets of eyes, one large set and one small set! Some folks have even seen Elvis! Julia would have a great time checking this out!

A couple of arches are major attractions. Here the story goes that an Indian maiden (poor Indians are in all the stories) jumped to her death from the arch after her hunter didn't return from a hunt! The boat captain narrating the tour wondered why any woman would do that for just a couple bucks!


Below is one of natures oddities and demonstrates the true grit of survival. You see the tree perched on top of the rock formation and wonder how it survives up there with little or no nourishment from the stone on which it lives. Look closely and you can see a series of roots extending from the rock the tree sits atop to the mainland! Many years ago the roots were actually in the ground but time has washed away that ground to leave the roots exposed.
Eventually the sun set over the water and the west shore of Munising Bay. As with any adventure it signaled that it was time to return home to toil again!

Two-thirds Complete!

Over my 6 day weekend in Ironwood the only thing missing was the watermelon wine! The old dogs and children were ever present!

What Does the Price of Gasoline in Holland Mean in English?

Rebecca loves to sleep in the car. Somtimes it took no more than a mile or two and she would turn her lead into the side of the seat and fall asleep. She does not appear to be interested in the price or gasoline!
Biker Mama and Rebecca going out for an evening ride! While many of us here in the United States would jump into the car and head for the Dairy Queen or Walmart the Dutch love their bikes for such adventures.

I took a picture of the local gas stations price list the other day. This one was a few miles north of Rebecca's house. While I did my photography she was probably snoring in the back seat! Anyway what does Euro 1.409 mean. First that is the price for a liter. There are 3.784118 liters per our gallon. Thus the price for a gallon of the gasoline would be Euro 5.33. Now we have to figure how Euro 5.33 converts to USD. If I did my figuring correctly Euro 5.33 would be USD 7.13. So what that means is that gasoline in The Nederlands is about $7.13. Now I just bought gasoline for the Grand Caravan today and paid $3.129. Thus we need to heed the fact and be overjoyed that our gasoline is less than half the cost of their gasoline. Thus we should motor about with great pride that we can do so much more cheaply than they can! Maybe that's why so many bikes are everywhere over there and they are not used only for pleasure but for transportation to work, school, shopping, and whatever.

Home Again Soon

Well the time here in the Nederlands is almost up. Its been a fast 3 plus weeks. The first time in my life that I've been away from home for so long! On this last evening we had dinner with the neighbors and will now resume packing the bags! The baby Rebecca is going into dreamworld and the sun will set by 11 or so to allow me to Lunestatize! Tomorrow brings the 2 hour car trip to Dusseldorf and the 9 hour plane ride to Detroit, then the short one hour hop to Green Bay and the short drive home! It is quite the world we live in where a person can leave Europe and be home in Michigan the same day. And as goes the story for any extended vacation I am now flat broke, so if you, dear readers, have any extra money for me to live on till the next SS check send it by Pay Pal or USPS to Iron Mountain! I'll be forever grateful!

Its been quite a week here in the Nederlands. The weather has been cooperative for adventures here is the Zetten area and for the past three days in Germany in Bremen, the home of the Bremen Town Musicians one of the classic folk and fairy tales by the Brothers Grimm. The picture shows the fivesome's famous statue. We explored the historical areas and took a boat ride on the River Weeser. The building is the Bremen Town Hall dating to the 1600's and is still used for city administration. Of course the photographing of the baby Rebecca continues as she first learned to sit up and then started crawling a few days ago. Its time to crawler proof! Whoops, as I write this she just dumped over the floor scrub water pail! Oh, well, that's a part of being a baby! We don't have much planned for the rest of my stay here. A few walks and possibly a bike ride or two in this beautiful Dutch country setting are in order! Of course we won't forget to eat some more cheese!

A Few Pictures

Zetten's 1000th birthday!
After a hard days work and a big supper!

Another Day In the Nederlands

The touring and baby photographing and dining and the like of a vacation in Zetten continued today. We took Dan to work so we could get the baby to her checkup. Beth drove along the windy narrow roads atop the Rhine dikes and we stopped at a farm to buy some home grown cheese! Rebecca yesterday sat herself up for the first time and is making a good effort to crawl. I even "babysat" for a while all by myself when Beth went to pick up Dan. Let me just say that I almost ran out of O2 trying to keep up with the baby! More fun happens tomorrow!

Driving Around in Holland!

Dutch Blogging doesn't scare me!

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Driving Around Blog weergeven
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Sign on to Blogger in Zetten and the above is what I see! Apparently the website thinks I can read the language here. I did recognize "Dashboard" and "Driving Around". I clicked a few times and made to the compose screen. Well, we haven't been driving around too much lately except at the airports where the plane seemed to taxi about as far as it flew in the last leg and of course we had to drive sort of straight to get to Zetten from Dusseldorf. Beth drove us home so she could find her way back to Dusseldorf when she brings me back to catch the plane home. I hope she threw out some crumbs to follow on that return to Dusseldorf trip. We do plan to little driving around on the bikes and in the car when the weather clears up a bit. We spent the day here photographing and playing with the baby, talking, eating and napping and photographing and playing with the baby again! Tonight I will get rid of the rest of the "jet lag" with a dose of Lunesta and be ready to hit the road to adventure come the new day. Check back again for more "driving around" as it develops!

Oh Christmas Tree!

You might have read the story of my Christmas Tree back in December. Well, my tree didn't go to the storage room or the compost pile. Its still sits there on the table! I checked out the facts on my "Christmas Tree" and found that it can be a house plant. Its a Norfolk Island Pine, a popular houseplant/Christmas tree. It has such wonderful soft needles. It not like those prickly smelly trees one finds in the tree lot. If any readers out there know anything about them let me know how to raise it so I can decorate it again next year. I guess out in the wilds of, I suppose Norfolk Island, they grow to immense size. Maybe I'll need to buy me a chainsaw in a few years! I wonder if this one will eventually go out through the roof or should I make it a bonsai. I do know that I need to find it a bigger pot soon since it has grown about six inches since December! And I know that it gives off oxygen so much in demand around here! I wonder if it blooms in the summer! I wonder if I should hire a tree pruning service so it looks its very best for next Christmas! Maybe I'll take it for a ride to Cost Cutters for a trim!

A Social Event

I enjoyed the second social event of my lazy days Friday and Saturday. Ironwood was the location of a Holiday gathering of family at brother Marv's house. From the top are Andy and a puppy dog, then Gayla the photographer, then all the doggies (Lord forbid that I not include a picture of them) and lastly the "old folks" gathered round the table! Thanks for having this "old folk" over Marv! And thanks for all the food Marv and Dorothy, and Rovelskys, and Marv Jr for the special "treat"!

Let There Be Light!

In case you haven't noticed the days have been getting shorter and shorter and the nights longer and longer. Tonight the sun will be gone for 16.4 hours and tomorrow it will appear for 7.8 hours. We might as well live in Lapland or on the North Slope! But take heart, tomorrow is the winter solstice when the sun has moved as far away as possible and starts to move back and that means longer days and shorter nights! Or is it that the Earth begins to tilt back to where it needs to be for summer to happen here in the northern hemisphere. And keep in mind that before long we will celebrate the vernal equinox and the summer solstice! Isn't that nice!

The Party

Well, last evening I attended my 11th Gunville Christmas Dinner. This could be the last as my future location is unknown at this time. I just might be living in a warmer climate next year. Nontheless I was asked by many how things were going as I hadn't seen anyone from the company in two weeks. What does one say? I'm still kicking..... things are about the same....we're trying to keep this breathing problem under control. The Gunville guys, Bob and Ryan, still talked about me pulling the horses next summer. Time will tell. Anyway it was nice to know that so many people, many of whom I had very little contact with, cared to take the time to talk with me and express their concerns and offer advice. Thanks to them. Dinner was served and Reggie and Bob talked their usual talk and I headed for home! Thanks for dinner Gunvilles!

Oh Christmas Tree!

My first Christmas tree in 10 years was harvested at Home Depot and dragged home and placed on my window table! I like my Christmas tree! Now I need to get some presents to put under the tree. Maybe a SS check!