TEN DAYS WITH THE BOYS....day eleven

OK I have to tell you now. I thought it was a ten day trip, but it is actually a twelve day trip. Tomorrow we will meet up with Jeff and Lorie and turn the boys back over to them. We will meet them in Egg Harbor, WI.
Today we drove to Escanaba, MI and are staying in a nice campground, a county park.
We had promised the boys that we would take them to a fun park today. Go cart rides, bumper boats, mini golf. They had a great time.

I played golf, but did not do the go carts. But Gamma sure did enjoy them!

Linda leading the pack

Jordan

Jamie liked this one as it looks like he is racing the mustang.

 

                                             Jordan complaining that Jamie is raming him.

A long driving day tomorrow, 175 miles.
Hope you have a great day
Love to all of ya
Jim, Linda, Jamie, Jordan

 

TEN DAYS WITH THE BOYS.......day ten

O.K. I missed a day....but it does not count. We had no cell service at Fayette.
So I will pretend this is yesterday.
Today we drove about 75 miles to get to Fayette state park. Linda and I were here about 20 or so years ago and wanted to go back.  We were both disapointed in that they have not done any recent restoration. They are in a preserving mode. I guess that is to be expected, as they do not get a lot of money to work on restoration.
When we first came here the campground was pretty new. Now it is well developed and very nice.
Here is a link to the town
http://www.exploringthenorth.com/fayette/town.html

And the rest will be just pictures.

The next four are photos taken when Fayette was a working town.

OK, if you want to look at the rest of the photos, go to this link

https://plus.google.com/photos/111116542009334943953/albums?banner=pwa&gpsrc=pwrd1#photos/111116542009334943953/albums/5894262084873050705

And here are some pictures of the boys playing on the beach. Altho, up here, there is no sandy beach. It is all shale rock.

And thats it for Fayette.
Moving on tomorrow.
Love to all of ya
Jim, Linda, Jamie, Jordan

TEN DAYS WITH THE BOYS......day nine

WE are in Munising, MI. Today we took the boat ride to see the shipwrecks.
http://shipwrecktours.com/
We saw three different shipswrecks. There are two areas on the boat that are viewing areas. Each one has three sections of glass that everyone stands around while they manuever the boat around the wreck. Sorry to say, that I forgot to charge the camera battery, so we have no pictures of the wrecks.
WE did get a few pictures, thou.

This last one is of the viewing area. Each 3 window area is about 10-12 foot long, and they held all of the people on the boat.

this is one of the oldest lighthouse on the great lakes, and has been restored.

This is a bald eagle. but I only had the short lens on the camera, so not very good.

I  took this one last night. Linda is worn out, and she is trying to rest. But as you can see, she has company.

After the boat tour, it was on the "Dogpatch restaurant" for an late lunch/early dinner.
Than back home to rest up.
Tomorrow, on the road again for another short trip of about 75 miles to Fayette state park.
Hope you had a great day
love to all of ya

 

TEN DAYS WITH THE BOYS......day eight

Today was a short 85 mile drive to Munising, MI. And a down day. We are parked in a big open field, so we have satellite, but it is quite warm. Linda did laundry, which took 4 hours as they only had one dryer working. I did grocery shopping. Got stuff to make sub sandwiches, which the boys liked.
Tomorrow we will do the sunken wrecks tour.
Yesterday we talked about the lower Tahquamenon falls, which are now closed to playing in. We told them that many years ago we were at the falls, and were able to play in the water. Linda's brother Dan sent some pictures of us. Not great quality, but they give you an idea.

This is Linda

this is Linda and Jim

 

Sorry about the orientation. I turned them righside up when I downloaded them, but they come out in the original format....no way that I know of to turn them around

OK they are waiting for me to go get ice cream.

have a great day

love to all of ya

Jim, Linda, Jamie, Jordan

 

TEN DAYS WITH THE BOYS......day seven

Today was pretty slow. We all slept in, had a lazy breakfast, and kind of polked along.
Than it was off to the Upper falls area of the state park. This is the second largest waterfalls east of the Mississippi river. The brown color of the water is caused by tannin which comes from the rotting vegitation and the tree roots.

 

 

It was a .2 mile walk back to the falls, but a very easy walk. Except coming back, it was uphill....And after coming back we went to, what else, a gift shop, and a very nice restaurant and brew pub.

Finally......some thing for gampa

I had the falls tannin which is a somewhat dark beer, but with good flavor. We also had a snack to hold us over for supper.

On the way to the lower falls, I had Linda drop me off at the campground (that does not mean she drove back.....oh, no) and they went on. Actually the lower falls is in the campground. Anyway they spent a little time there and came back, after.......guess what.........another gift shop!!!

But this time only gamma picked up something....now that is a switch.

Back about 20 some years ago we did this area with Linda's brother Dan and his wife Dee and their three children. At that time you could play in the lower falls, and we all had a great time playing in the water and climbing on the rocks. But today that is not possible. As you see in the picture there are now viewing platforms to see the falls....but no getting in the water. We think someone got hurt or drowned in the falls, and that stopped the fun..

Tomorrow on to Munising, MI, on the lake Superior southern coast for two days.

Hope you had a great day today

Love to all of ya

Jim, Linda, Jamie, Jordan

 

 

 

TEN DAYS WITH THE BOYS.;......day six

This morning we drove to Tahquamenon Falls State Park. http://www.exploringthenorth.com/tahqua/tahqua.html
A short drive, about two hours. After driving around both campgrounds we found a site that we thought we could get a satellite signal on.....but I was wrong. So two nights without tv.
We drove over to White Fish Point to the Great Lakes Shipwreck museum where they have exhibits on the shipwrecks on the great lakes. A very well done museum. Small, but well done.
http://www.shipwreckmuseum.com/whitefishpoint

This is the bell from the Edmond Fitszgerald. They went down and removed the bell, and replaced it with a duplicate with the names of all 29 crewmen.

These figures are very realistic looking. I kept waiting for them to move. They are as good, if not better, than the one in wax museums.

These are actual dive suits, and the wreck is also real.

After the museum it was off to the gift shop for more treasures. Than on to a tour of the lightkeepers house(s). There was originally one house built in the 1800 and than somewhere in the 1900 they rebuilt the house as a duplex and added an assistant lightkeeper.The older side was unfurnished but the newer side was furnished with some of the same furniture and stuff as the original. One of the women who lived there helped in the restoration.

We kept looking for this guy to move also. Jamie touched his face to see if he would move.

.

And it would not be a complete day without some pictures of the boys. After the museum Linda took them out to the beach to play and collect some rocks.

On the way out to the campground Linda had seen a sign for fresh whitefish and chips. So for supper tonight thats where we went, Linda and I had the whitefish and chips and the boys had shrimp baskets. Everything was very good.

Tomorrow we will do the upper and lower falls if we can survive the mosquitos!!!!

They are everywhere...we even swatted at them in the restaurant.

Have a great night

love to all of ya

Jim, Linda, Jamie, Jordan