Michigan Vacation, The Last Day

Well, Gentle Readers, as you might expect after such a momentous day on Wed Oct 20th, what with the Great Big Sea concert and all, I'd deliberately scheduled Thursday to be a quiet day full of downtime. I was hoping to have a full night's sleep (first one since the previous Friday!!) and to just hang about the Chief Fool's apartment, not doing much.

Unfortunately Fate had other ideas. We got home on (technically) Thursday morning to find a note from her apartment manager saying that they were coming to take the air conditioners (that they provide, nice that they install and uninstall, but only a few hours notice? really?) and would start at 9am. Remember how I said that we'd gotten to bed at 5am? You do the math.

Not only that, but CF also had an important PhD related meeting (an early lunch) that day . . . so my vision of a relaxing morning, sleeping in, was gone forever. Since she had to go to that meeting, I got to stay up and greet the apartment guy, oh joy. But, before she'd left, she'd put a note on her door asking them not to show up before 11am, so I at least got about 6  hours sleep, which is fine for a lot of people but not for me. I'm one of those folks who needs more, and usually sleeps between 8-9 hours a day. While I was waiting for them to come and remove the air conditioners, I used the time to write my concert review (they serve not only as information for others who couldn't be there, but also as memory providers for me, when I start to forget what I saw and heard, in a few weeks or months) and then dozed, waiting for either the air conditioner guys or the Fool to come back.

Turns out, the Fool showed up first! Argh. Apartment life, go figure.

We left the apartment and went to a pretty little town called Seahaven, MI, heavy on the tourism factor since they're literally right on Lake Michigan and are still a busy port. However, it being mid-October, there weren't any tourists at all, only locals, and a lot of the shops had reduced hours, including the italian place we wanted to go for lunch! We hit a small diner instead that was actually open. Their food was good, the ambiance could have used a little work, but for half the year it's crowded with visitors and you can't even see the walls, so I suppose decor becomes less important in that sort of situation.

We went to Lake Michigan too and you have to understand, this lake is one of the BIG ones, one of the chain of lakes that separates Canada from the US, and it's so huge that A) you can't see across it, B) it acts like the ocean, even has minor tide action, C) also acts like the ocean when its angry, and D) has actually had sharks living in it at one point. It is also deep enough at some points to host rumors of a Nessie-like creature, albeit a small one. Most of the Michigan side of Lake Michigan is sandy beaches, though as you get farther north, the sand turns to gravel, and then to big rocks.

The day we went it was exceptionally windy, and on the shore even more so. I took this video hanging on to the camera with one hand and my hat with the other hand! Sorry about the camera shake, there wasn't anything I could do -- yes, my hands shake a little but in this case, 95% of the shake on the vid is because the wind was trying to pull my camera out of my hands.

(still figuring out this whole video thing . . . please bear with me . . .sorry this one is so small!)

Next On The StewPot: Traveling Home