The Beauty in a Cloudy Day

I’ve told you about our fall vacation the middle of September, the whirlwind trip through Minnesota, Iowa and Illinois. After a day home to rest up, we took off again on the Friday of that week, for a ride up to our favorite spot. The forecast was for sunny skies and highs in the sixties. It had been an unseasonably warm week for the rest of our travels, so we jumped in the SUV with high hopes of another beautiful day. 

 Roadside Park along the Ontonagon River. The skies don’t look too promising, but all will be fine once we reach Lake Superior. 

 No matter how dreary the weather, a single daisy still looks like a bouquet to me. 

 Driving down the hill into Houghton/Hancock, the Franklin mine on the opposite hill. Coming down this hill still gives me the same thrill it always did when I was a kid.  

 Got to our beach at Calumet Waterworks Park. I was okay with the lower than expected temperatures and the clouds. 

 Even a few drops of rain wouldn’t keep us from letting Dino have his swim. Then some lightning struck. We decided it was time to head back to the SUV and up the road. 

 Jacob Falls. Our goal for the day being the Jampot just down the road.

  Once again bought way too many baked goods from the monks. But they make some good cookies and muffins. Brownies too. 

 A few of the times we stopped along Lake Superior, we could see this boat barreling along. 

  Don’t know what kind of ship it was – much smaller than the frequent freighters we see far out in the lake. But it was really booking. 

 I’ve always loved the shore of Lake Superior along this stretch of road.

Don’t know if Dino appreciated it, but he did appreciate spending the day with us. 

 One of our last stops was at Lake Medora. The ducks came quacking up to us begging for a handout. 

 Apparently, there is no hunting breed in Dino, as I had always thought. He couldn’t care less about those ducks; he just wanted to swim.   

Despite the cloudy skies, it was a beautiful day, because remember, beauty isn’t just what’s on the outside. It’s what’s on the inside.

What can you give up?

"Simply put, if you're not willing to take what is dearest to you, whether plans or people, and kiss it good-bye, you can't be my disciple.” Luke 14:33 The Message 

Hopefully this will be last blog post about our vacation to Michigan’s UP this year. I really could tell lots more stories, but you are probably getting bored with it all. I can’t help it that I found so much inspiration there.

And I know I’ve shared a little bit about these guys before, but here is another take on them. The Jampot is that cute little shop that sells preserves and baked goods where the hubby has to stop at least twice each vacation. Here’s a hint – their Hermit Cookies are absolutely to die for.

If it weren’t for the fact that the guy waiting on you is wearing a plain brown robe and has a beard practically down to his waist, you might forget that these guys are monks. Sure it’s easy to think that they are up here in the middle of nowhere running a business just like anyone else, but they have turned their lives completely over to Jesus Christ. They live a simple life, they own nothing of their own, they stay at their monastery on the shores of Lake Superior all through the dead of winter with more snow than you can even imagine. And through those long dark cold winter months, they spend most of their time in prayer and reflection. 

I’ve always wondered what that kind of a life would be like. Dismissing the fact that I’m not Catholic, I’ve tried to imagine what it would be like to be a nun. Do I have to go to any of those extremes to give my life to Christ? Nope, not unless He calls me to do something that drastic.

For now, I will try to live a life which honors my Savior, read my Bible, connect with other believers, encourage non-believers, write a weekly inspirational blog. And continue to support the monks at the Society of St. John in Eagle Harbor, Michigan. 

"There will come soft rains"

“There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,

And swallows circling with their shimmering sound.” Sara Teasdale, 1920

I first read this poem when I was in high school and never knew why I was drawn to it. I didn’t learn until many years later that it was about war and the extinction of mankind. No wonder Ms.Teasdale committed suicide.

 

When we were in Michigan camping in July, we had beautiful sunny weather, until Wednesday morning, when it rained for four hours. You know how I am about taking pictures, so I had to go out and document some after-the-rain shots to go with the pictures I had taken on Monday.

                        

After just so little rain, I found it amazing that the rivers had gone up this much. It makes me feel even more sympathetic towards those living in areas of our country affected by drought. You would think that in this great land of ours in the year 2012 we could ship them enough water to make a difference.

Hmm? Read all of Sara Teasdale’s poem sometime. In the world we live in now, let me know what it has to say to you.   

Calumet

Back in the day, when mining was king, Calumet, Michigan, boasted a population of over 4,500. Today that total stands just under 800. Driving the streets of Calumet during our vacation in July, it didn’t seem like a ghost town, but statistics look a little grim. What a shame. There is a lot of history here. 

And so now I am going to do something I never do on this blog. I am going to copy and paste information straight off the internet, telling you about these places. At the end of each blurb is the website which I borrowed from, but the pictures are all mine. 

In 1900, Calumet was a booming town in the center of Michigan's copper mining industry. The largest company in the region, Calumet and Hecla, operated its works between the villages that became Calumet and Laurium.

Mines drew a diverse population, including Cornish, Scots, Italians, Finns, Swedes, Croatians, Slovenians, and French Canadians. French Canadians, under the administration of Reverend J. R. Boissonault, built a church dedicated to St. Anne. The architectural firm of Charlton, Gilbert and Demar designed the structure, built of red sandstone from the Jacobsville quarry.

Many of the building’s details derive from the flamboyant of rayonnant style of the late Gothic period in France, reflecting the heritage of its congregation. The sandstone is cut in square and rectangular shapes and randomly laid. The stones of the piers, water table and window surrounds are smoothly finished at the edge and hammer dressed toward the center. Stepped lancet arches of the portals show indications of horizontal tooling on the vertical faces of the arch.

Deconsecrated by the Catholic Church in 1966, the building housed a flea market in the 1970s and 1980s and was the scene of a horror movie early in the 1990s. Over three decades, the building was vacant or underutilized. From 1966 to 1994, the building received no maintenance. Beginning in 1994, efforts to rescue the building began. Volunteers, donations and grants have reversed the pattern of neglect that nearly doomed one of Calumet’s most significant and dominant structures. ( http://pasty.com/heritage/ )

 

(I couldn't find this church on the internet and I can't remember which church it was or even if it still had its church name, as I think it has been empty a long time.) 

 (A lot of the buildings downtown were vacant and up for sale. Got any ideas for a business you'd like to start up in the far North?)

At the turn of the twentieth century, the threat of fire was constant in what was then a prosperous mining town.[2] The construction of the fire station was started in 1898 and completed in 1899, using plans made by architect C. K. Shand.[4] Although the station was built by the village of Calumet (then "Red Jacket"), the lot on which it sits was leased from the Calumet and Hecla Mining Company until 1910, when the company deeded it to the village.[4] The total cost of the building at the time was just over $20,000, including architectural work, stonework, and carpentry.[4]

In 1964, the fire department moved to the town hall building.[2] The building was used in various ways, including rooms for summer repertory performers at the nearby Calumet Theatre.[4] It now houses the Upper Peninsula Fire Fighters Memorial Museum.[3]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calumet_Fire_Station

The Village of Calumet was incorporated in 1875 when it was the center of the copper mining industry in North America. As the community grew, the Town Hall was built in 1886; and in 1898, with a huge surplus in the treasury, it was decided that an opera house was needed to serve the community. At that time the village had a population of approximately 4000 and more than 30,000 lived within walking distance.

The Theatre opened on March 20, 1900 with a touring Broadway production of Reginald DeKoven's The Highwaymen. In the ensuing years, the Theatre's marquee read like a Who's Who of American Theatre: Madame Helena Modjeska, Lillian Russell, John Phillip Sousa, Sarah Bernhardt, Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., Lon Chaney, Sr., Jason Robards, Sr., James O'Neill, William S. Hart, Frank Morgan, Wallace and Noah Beery, and Madame Schumann-Heink, to name a few.

With the decline of copper mining and the local economy, and the advent of motion pictures, stage productions became less common in the late 1920s. From the depression through the late 1950s, it was almost exclusively a movie theatre, operated by several different local interests over the years. Summer stock returned in 1958, ran for nearly 10 years, and then came back under the auspices of Michigan State University in 1972.

The auditorium was renovated for the village's centennial in 1975, and the exterior was restored in 1988-89. The technical and code improvements and backstage reconstruction have just been completed.

  

The Theatre annually hosts 60-80 events with a total attendance of nearly 20,000. Nearly all of the performing arts disciplines are represented, including symphony, folk music, jazz, opera, theatre, dance, and community events, as well as public meetings and guided tours.

The Calumet Theatre is a National Historic Landmark. ( http://www.calumettheatre.com/about/26 )

Win just one - for who?

“Some time, Rock, when the team is up against it, when things are wrong and the breaks are beating the boys, ask them to go in there with all they've got and win just one for the Gipper.”

As most men and women, my husband and I have different views on how to enjoy vacation. We agree on quite a few things, but one of my favorite vacation activities is looking at old buildings. This is a pastime which I think the hubby could take or leave, so I hate to overwhelm him with it and try to rein myself in.

On vacation in Michigan’s UP last week, I found a map of historic Laurium. I thought it would be awesome to walk those residential streets and identify all the old houses and businesses. The hubby, I could tell, saw little entertainment value in that idea. Until I asked him who George Gipp was.

“Look, it’s the Gipp Memorial,” I said, pointing to the city map. The hubby is a huge trivia buff and especially delights in sports trivia. I suspected who George Gipp might be, but thought the hubby would relish biting this one off. He didn’t let me down.

As it turns out, George Gipp was a football player for Notre Dame from 1917 through 1920. He played several positions under the famous coach Knute Rockne. The movie “Knute Rockne: All American” featured a young Ronald Reagan playing George Gipp, who recited the now immortal words above.

There is a lot more to the story. Hmm? Too bad it has already been done, but I bet I could find something there to use some day. 

Dino the wonder dog goes on vacation.

Two years ago was the first and only time that we took Dino camping. He did very well and had a great time. Obviously. Coz as we were packing to go camping this time, he didn't want to get left behind. 

 His favorite thing is swimming in Lake Superior. He will fetch a stick thrown in the water forever. We worry that the stupid dog is going to have a heart attack though, coz he doesn't know when to quit. 

 It does take him a little while to settle down in the truck, though. Most of the way up to Michigan he drove us nuts, bouncing around. By the second day he had figured it out though. Time in the vehicle is just time to go from one fun thing to another. 

In an attempt to settle Dino down on the long drive to the State Park, Himey bought him a rawhide bone. Dino had no intentions of chewing it until it softened up a bit. So as soon as we got settled into our campsite, he buried it under some leaves at the each of the woods. Every day he would bring it out and nudge it around, seeing if it was soft yet. 

As we were packing up the camper and the campsite on Thursday morning, getting ready for the sad trip home, he dragged out the rawhide bone. He set it at my feet, as if to say, "Don't forget to pack my stuff too."

The day after we got home, he finally started chewing on the bone. He's such a goof. 

"Go Fly a Kite"

Sunday morning, my husband, the dog and I piled into the Blazer, towing the pop-up camper, and drove to Mclain State Park in Michigan’s UP. I just love it up there, and I know I have blogged about it before so I will try to stay focused on the story at hand.

Every morning when we are up there, we drive to a little township park a few miles up the road from where we are camped so that Dino can frolic in Lake Superior and I can hunt for pretty rocks. The hubby usually is along for the ride or the walk as it turns out.

Our first morning there this year, as Dino and I were on a mission on the beach – one of us to find rocks and the other to just plain play in the water – the hubby found a discarded kite in the sand. By the time I had walked far enough up the beach to have filled my pockets so full of rocks that my thighs looked like chipmunk cheeks, he had the kite aloft and was having a great time.

This is a talent I do not possess; I cannot get a kite airborne. Hubby, though, has never had a problem flying a kite. And I will never win an argument with him by ending it with “go fly a kite” because he would gladly go outside and do it.  

Even Dino the wonder dog thinks that Daddy is talented. 

Going Home

Thursday, July 29, 2010

Last day in Michigan’s UP and last night Himey and I both slept like rocks. Finally. Even Dino the Wonderdog slept in this morning.

By nine, though, we were taking down the pop-up camper and had everything packed and ready to go by ten. Our only stop on the way home was a roadside park north of Bruce Crossing.

It was the perfect vacation for me. And Himey was hooked. Oh, and the cost? $266.75. Sure can’t beat that.

Six months later I made campground reservations at McLain State Park for this past July. As it turned out, Himey got a new job the first of June and wasn’t able to get time off work. I waited until the last minute to cancel the reservations; I just didn’t want to give up the dream of another idyllic vacation on Lake Superior. The day I made that call, I stumbled upon the annual Rhinelander School of the Arts, which is a week’s worth of workshops on writing, painting and other creative ventures. I had always thought about signing up for it and this year it just so happened I was on vacation that week with nowhere else to go. Hmm? A sign from God?

Never mind my ranting

Afternoon, Wednesday, July 28, 2010

For lunch today, we stopped again at the city park in Eagle Harbor, Michigan. Then we hunted up Pine Grove Cemetery. An interesting cemetery, but not even that old; we found three graves from 2010.There was even a fresh hole dug for someone’s cremains that hadn’t even been covered up yet. They just had the same kind of carpet sample that Himey uses to cover up the cremains hole after he digs it.

The thing is this cemetery was in almost as bad a shape as Schoolcraft. I could not believe it. Ok, it is one thing to forget the people who died a century ago, but do you really want grandma, who died last week, thrown in a hole where no caretaker has ever mowed. It was insane. It was unworldly. I cannot even describe the condition of this place. Sure, the old graves were falling apart, the headstones in disrepair and such. But right next to them were graves from a few years ago, with fresh flowers or other sentimental stuff (the empty beer bottle or stuffed animal) and no upkeep going on anywhere. I asked Himey how he even thought the vault people or the pallbearers could get into these places for a burial today. Sorry to rant, but holy cow, I do not get it. What are the people living in Eagle Harbor thinking??

I took lots of cool pictures though, again. This time for evidence.

After I had calmed down enough, we next drove to Delaware Mine. The lady who runs it was really nice. She said that Dino was more than welcome to come on the mine tour with us, but at $10 a pop, we thought we would skip it. We did do the above ground tour which was only $3 each.

Walking about the grounds, we came to a fenced enclosure and Dino got the snot scared out of him when a momma goat rammed the fence trying to head-butt him. She was just protecting her babies, who I think really wanted to play with Dino. Dino was really good about it, didn’t whine or bark at her and just acted like, “what’s going on here?”

Dreaming of my Dream Vacation

Summer Vacation 2010

I had wanted to go camping in the pop-up trailer for a very long time, and I finally convinced Himey to give it a try. He has been more than willing but I kept hesitating, just not picturing it happening and not wanting to get my hopes up. In the spring of 2010 when we started talking about where to go on vacation, the biggest stumbling block was the cost. No matter where we went, with the price of gas, hotels and meals, we would be looking at a thousand dollars for a week.

When I figured the cost of a camping trip to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, it came up at around $300. If we took the dog with, instead of boarding him out, that would save money too. So I started making plans.

I’d always wanted to stay at McLain State Park up past Houghton, and thought it would be friendly towards Himey as they have electricity at all the sites and hot showers. I’d stayed there a lot when I was a kid (which you know if you have been reading my blog from the beginning). Himey really liked the UP when we were there the year before and wanted to go back. It seemed as though it was all falling into place. I was finally going to get my dream vacation – camping in the UP. Or was I?

You’ll have to check back on Wednesday to see how it turned out. Also, this is the last back-log trip I will be writing about. The countdown is on - two more weeks and I am totally revamping my blog! Stay tuned.