What I Did On My Summer Vacation

2200 miles on the road concentrated over 4 days of driving, highlighted by a 700+ mile voyage back from Port Huron, Michigan. As the highly esteemed Lonesome George once said Riding my rig about 95 Rockin' and a rollin' into overdrive My heart is beatin' like a sledgehammer Dont' you get in the way of this gearjammer We had an MP3 player that had hours and hours of tunes, but if I had just put that one song on a continuous loop I'm certain the cruise would have slowly crept up as we drove and would have shaved a few hours off the trip. I did all the driving on this trip, which worked out great because Wifey is better with the kids, anyway. I brought earplugs in case things got out of hand. No joke. Fortunately, the kids did fantabulous, all things considered. We were all ready to return to our beds when we got back to the Coast. The time we spent in the Great Lakes States was very un-East Coast. We went to a wedding in Pennsylvania. Admittedly, they have weddings in New England, also, but there was line dancing at this one. We also spent a great deal of time at my mother's house, where she has retired to after ending her nursing career.

It was a remarkable setting, 20 acres of pastoral countryside adjacent to the Manistee National Forest. You could step out the door and hear... the breeze and nothing else. Occasionally horses or roosters at an adjacent farm. I ran a 3 mile loop one time, including stretches on main roads, and didn't see a single car or person. There were plenty of chickens at my mothers, 20 to be precise, but they are still juveniles so there are no crowing roosters yet. Sweetness absolutely adored the chickens, so we spent a lot of time catching grasshoppers and other bugs to toss to the chickens. I did not pushing being interested in creepy-crawlies on my daughter, but she sure loves chasing snakes, bugs, frogs, and the like. I even got to spend a little time helping Grandpa Paul erect the coop that the chickens will ultimately call home. Well, except for the surplus male chickens. They're destined for somebody's belly. I'd love to post pictures, but we just got an "update" to Kodak Easyshare software that is making it difficult to upload files. Perhaps I can follow up later.