Getting ready to head home

It’s getting cold up here in Michigan and it’s time to head south. This morning there was frost on the grass and ice on top of our Geo Metro “Rusty”.

These green leafs are rimmed with frost.

Ice on old "Rusty's" roof

The last minute items are getting done and we should be ready to leave Mi. in a few more days. The water supply in the Lake House still needs to be drained  and the car packed. I’ve told Anna that we have a bit less room to haul things back to the Snow Goose than last time. Looking at the size of the pile to go I’m not sure that there will be room for Eddie inside of the car. Hope that she likes ridding on the hood!

It’s been a grand summer here at the Lake House but it’s time to head south to our “other” home. See you there!

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!