Sunday, September 18, 2016

Life is an Adventure

 
Friday morning, set out for Bob and Peggy's
where we would take a trip west,
to Michigan City Indiana.
 
Should have known it would be a wild ride
when Bob couldn't get his seat adjusted in his driveway.

 
We wanted to take Route 12
 so that we could run by Irish Hills,
 and maybe some other places we'd never been.
 
Traffic and detours,
and more traffic and detours...
 
We made it to MIS,
and realized that we were going way too far
 away from our destination,
and wasting a lot of time and miles,
so we turned around and
got back on our westward course.

 
We encountered Amish carriages,
 and clydesdale's pulling tractors,
 and school buses,
 and detours,
 and more detours,
but the last straw was when we finally made it to Michigan City
 and entered the exit ramp...

 
Our 4 hour trip was already seven hours in,
 when we got caught behind semi trucks hauling windmill sections...
 
Oh my God, they were going -10 miles per hour
trying to round the off ramp.
 
After our long trip, we were pretty short on patience.

 
We just laughed when we couldn't even get a picture
 of the "Welcome to Indiana" sign
 because there was a construction sign in front of it.

 
We reached our destination,
 and signed in to our little shoebox of a room
at the Super 8.
 
We didn't realize that there was a Michigan-Notre Dame game
 this weekend and all the hotels were booked.
 
My God, the comedy of errors just kept coming...
 
We left our stuff in the hotel
 and started off for the Blue Chip Casino
 which was just a few minutes up the road...

 
We were immediately stopped by road closures,
 and detours, and even a train,
 and by the time we got to the casino it was 8:30 at night.

 
There it is, the "Blue Chip Casino".
 
The steakhouse restaurant had a two hour wait
 and the machines ate all of our money.
We went back to our little shoebox hungry and poor.
 
Tomorrow will be better...

 
We woke up to a beautiful day,
and had "GrandSlam" breakfasts at Denny's
and then we hit the Lighthouse Place Outlet mall
 where we all bought ourselves some new shoes...
 
and some other junk.

 
Oh my gosh,
this city has a nuclear reactor thing looming over the whole town.
It's everywhere you go.
 
It's a little disconcerting. 

 
After some shopping,
it was off to New Buffalo, Michigan,
to the Four Winds Casino.
 
and we made it there with no problem at all.
We even took a drive down by the lakeshore on our way.

 
I had an angel over my shoulder here,
as this little lady sat by and just winked at me
 every time my machine started ringing.
 
I was the big winner of the day.
 
But what I really want to talk about
 was the Bloody Mary that I ordered when we first got there.
 It was strange to me that it had a stack of olives in it,
 but I nursed that delicious drink the whole afternoon
 and I kept going back to the bar,
 and asking them to add ice and more olives.
 and they did, and I probably had 20 olives
by the end of the day.

 
Here's Bobby throwing in his last $10,
before we left.

 
Back to Indiana...

 
After we regrouped,
we drove down to Washington Park,
and walked on the beach to watch the sun set on the pier.

 
What a beautiful place.

 
We couldn't believe that you could actually park right next to the shoreline
 and walk down to the water and enjoy Lake Michigan,
 and the lighthouse, and the ambiance.
 
You just can't do that anywhere near Detroit.
 
Then we went for ice cream. 

 
Ahh, Sunday morning,
we said good bye to our tiny motel room,
ate another giant breakfast at Denny's.
and hit the road.

 
We made it home in 4 hours.
 
It was a great weekend.
It seems that the more crazy stuff that happens,
the more fun we actually have.
 
Life is an adventure.

Thursday, September 8, 2016

Bobby Likes Tools

 
The picture doesn't represent what I saw
 when I walked downstairs in the morning
 and looked toward the front window.
Through my bleary eyes all I saw
 was a sea of orange out my front window.
It was a giant moving van
across the street.

 
Here we are at the vet.
Shorty had a coughing thing
 going on for way too long,
 so we took her in, and sat for three hours,
 and paid $50.00 and she was fine.

 
Went to mom's last weekend to finish the painting there.
Nice surprise...

 
Bobby showed up to help.

 
We painted the back of the house in no time at all.
 
Then we got to visit for a bit,
and plan our trip to Michiana next weekend.

 
Every night this week we've been out in the garage,
sorting through Terry's brother's crap,
and trying to make sense of it all.

 
Tools, tools, tools,
that's what the garage sale sign is going to say.

 
I've never seen so many tools in my life.

 
I don't even know what I'm taking pictures of,
giant saws, and drills, and wrenches,
 and car stuff, and plumbing stuff, and
just, "WOW". 
 
We'll try to have a garage sale this weekend.

 
This guy parked himself on the garage door,
and he's not leaving.

 
This guy is in my onions.
 
I like nature,
but not that much.