Art Prize

Our summer home in Sand Lake is just north of Grand Rapids, Mi where they just had the annual Art Prize competition. Art Prize is a 3 week long orgy of art culminating in a $200,000 top prize decided by the vote of the people viewing the art. Every type and kind of art that you can think of is presented in the competition throughout the Grand Rapids downtown area and the surrounding areas. This art includes everything from paintings to statues, mosaics and free form to movable art and participation art. Sound, motion, stills, murals, and art pushing themes to pure whimsy. It’s a glorious 3 week feast of the arts. If you can, you should make time to come, see and participate in it. Here are just a few of the 1000 different Art Prize entry’s that we saw in the course of 4 days of walking. It was incredible.

Marble statue

a different way to use instruments

This guy is wired

a crystal dragon floating in air

recycled rhinoceros

A pine needle bear

stained glass

UGG!

looks like stained glass but it's paint

This is a small part of the top prise winner

$200,000  and it's all done with a pencil!

look close, the shadow faces are created by folding the papers edge

I’m sure you have noticed that I’ve haven’t put anything on the blog for the last 2 months. Well, that’s because after I lost part of my middle finger I found that it was really hard to type with only 2 fingers.

(this picture is really fantastic, I was missing part of my finger and it has grown back!)

Anyway, my ring finger is back in action so I thought that I’d give the blog a try again. Lots of things have been happening over the summer, we got the Lake House repaired enough to move into it. At the start of the summer, the list seemed endless but, we got a lot of work done and have made the house livable. We have just scratched the surface on all of the changes that we want to do to the Lake House it's just going to take a long time to get it all done. We are on a 5 year plan, and the first year is to make the house livable. Year two, jack up the sagging floors!

The house sits on a small hill and has rock walls on the hillsides that form terraces for gardening. I've rebuilt this section of wall which was falling down.

We replaced the Jetta wagon that we bought last year with … ready for this? A 20 yr old Geo Metro which we named “Rusty” (for a good reason). After working on it for about 3 weeks I brought it back to life and now have a car that rattles going down the road but gets about 45 to 50 mpg. Not to bad for 20 yr old technology. Why can’t they build a basic car that gets this kind of mpg today?

Rusty, before and after shots.

The summer has rushed by and we had a lot of company here at the lake. It seemed that every time it got above 90 deg some grand kid wanted to come and spend the night with us. Go figure… While on the topic of grand children we just received our latest Great grand child I think that this one makes enough for 3 full base ball teams!

The vegetable garden was a success and we are still getting veggies out of it. The tomatoes are fantastic! Anna's flower garden also turned out great with some of the biggest flowers that I've ever seen.

We heat with wood here and I’ve split up about 3 cords of wood to see us thru this fall and when we return next spring. About the only thing that we lack is a fast Internet service since we refuse to pay the outrages cost of the local Comcast. Maybe next year. I’ve also taken on several contracting jobs so the cruising kitty is starting to look good again. We plan to try for the Bahamas this winter. I hope to see some of you down there!

Laying cement and building door panels for another contract.

The fall has really set in with the trees turning brilliant colors this fall. I think that the drought we had this summer has contributed to the intense colors this fall.

A stunning as it is though, the cool nights are beginning to push my spirit south towards the Snow Goose. It’s been a fantastic summer but I’m looking forward to going home again and we will be heading south in a few weeks.

Accident

Well, it finally happened, after 40+ years of wood work, I caught my fingers in the table saw. I’d recommend that you not let this happen to you.

Cheep car

I’ve always had an affinity for small cars and so when my friend Ralph offered to sell me his old GEO Metro I jumped on it. It had been stored for the last 8 years under a cover and I figured that it wouldn’t take too much to get it on the road again… or at least that’s what I thought. Well now that the engine is rebuilt I am discovering just how bad a Michigan car with “cancer” can get just by sitting around for years. I almost threw in the towel when I found that every brake line had rusted thru or when I discovered that the fuel tank had 2 holes rusted thru it. When I pushed my hand right up into the bottom of the car thru the rocker panels I wanted to give up too but then I decided that “I can fix that”. So, I’m still going ahead with the restoration of the car and if nothing else goes wrong I should have it on the road in another couple of weeks.

I realize that I'm off from the AT for this year but I have one last video to show you all. I took it on the AT in the Shenandoah Park, on the last day of the hike. Both of us were in a lot of pain and walking was... well to put it plainly, a real pain. It felt like an ice pick was being pushed into the side of my knees every time I took a step. Thanks again for all of your positive comments. One Step

More injuries

Everything looked good, the pack weight was less, the weather was great and the trail was some of the best that I’ve walked in the last 600 miles,,, yet here I am back in Michigan again. I hate getting old.

My good friend Ken (AKA “Woody”) had planned to hike with me thru the Shenandoah National Park in northern Virginia so, now that my ankle has healed up I decided to skip the middle section of Virginia and catch it in the fall on the way back to the boat. I felt great when we left the hotel and started up into the mountains. The trail was easy and we were taking it easy to avoid injury yet by the time 10 miles rolled around woody and I could both feel a slight pain in our knees. Should have gone back to the last spring and set up camp but NO,,, onward we pressed and by the time we got to the next water source we were both limping badly. From there the knees just went downhill. The next day was only 8 miles and by the third day we had walked only .4 and we could feel the same knee pain setting in so we tossed in the towel and headed home. I feel good that I finished as much as I did but sad that I couldn’t finish the entire trail. It’s a monumental task, bigger than anything that I have ever tried before. The AT humbled me but I hope to come back and finish the trail in another year.

Here are some pictures and videos of the trail, Thanks to everyone that has taken the time to click on this Blog and especially to those who have emailed words of encouragement to me along the way; it meant a lot to receive those letters. Thanks!

Back in Michigan

It’s been a busy month back in Michigan. My right ankle has healed up and I can walk again with minimum pain. The knees and the hips are still talking to me but only in a whispering voice so I ignore them and the soles of my feet are starting to “wake up” again. They were completely numb from the balls of each foot right out to the ends of my toes. It feels a bit funny having the bottom of your foot feel like “pins and needles” everyday but it’s starting to come back to life so it’s OK.


Other than that we’ve been slowly putting our “Lake house” together so that Anna can have a place to live after I return to the trail.  Last fall we purchased a repossessed house on Upper Lake that had sat vacant for 3 years and it’s been quite a challenge to bring this old gal back to life. The people before us vandalized the house when it went into foreclosure so it was a real challenge to repair all of the damage.

For instance, it took 3 days just to get the well working and the all of the pipe leaks repaired throughout the house. There were over 15 separate places where the pipes had been frozen apart or deliberately broken. I had water pouring out of the ceiling over 5 times during this processes. The basement was a sopping mess. It’s a long story but with a happy ending.

We now have a working kitchen, a revamped bathroom and plumbing that doesn’t leak. Wooden floors that have been sanded and re-varnished, junk tossed out and the mold bleached until it is dead. I’m still in the process of jacking the floors back into place, repairing the rotting door jambs, and the last broken window but the major jobs are pretty much done. We have had lots of grand kids up to the lake and they all say that the water is warm and I should jump in!

I’ve even put our wooden dinghy, the Michael J. in to the water and we now have a rowing boat to take around the lake. Life is good.

I’m getting the itch to get back to the trail and add some more miles up. My friend Ken also wants to hike a bit of the trail so in another week or so we are heading back and I will start walking again. Stay in tune and I’ll start posting about the trail soon.