Notes From Michigan

Soooo... missives from vacation tend to be... lethargic, laconic and lots of other things meaning to express to a general lack of....doing-ness. I have been parked up in beautiful Arcadia Michigan at the Becker summer compound. Two kids, one wife, two dogs and a variety of house guests throughout the week. There is always the illusion that there will be some contemplative time and the fact is that it is just an illusion... and that it might be an out and out lie.

The first two days were filled once again with Arcadia Daze. Fior those of you unfamiliar it is a two day event in Arcadia Michigan including a craft show, a parade and two nights of drinking in the city park which is fenced off with snow fence. "Drink in a pen with your friends". It does not get any better. $2.50 for a can of beer. A DJ playing in the pavilion and every manor of poor, fat, northern Michigan white trash. It cannot be under estimated the poor quality of people who generally attend. Many of them are my friends. Because there is Camp Arcadia up here the Daze tends to be a reunion event and there will be 50 or more camp people wandering around the pen. It is not as fun as it was formerly because now we have a house and most of the people come and drink there before, and sometimes after, the Daze. Mixed blessings.

On Saturday night we cooked out with Pastor and Mrs. Tiemann. They drove in from Rochester New York just for the weekend to cut their lawn and putz around in their garden and check on their house. There are some medical issues at home which are keeping them away this summer but they are parents of one of my best friends and are just some really fine people. We cooked bratwurst. t\They were happy. Me too. There is something about an old Lutheran Pastor. A certain obstinance and crustiness if they have been allowed longevity. And this one married above his station in life. Good company and I like having my kids get to know them. Truly a different era.

It is great seeing all these people and it is also great when.... they leave. The camp runs family weeks all summer long which means people arrive on Saturday and stay to the next Saturday. We sit in our little house three blocks away in town and watch the people come and go and some are nice enough to stop by. there is always a St. Louis contingent and this year we had the Buemers, the Bergmans and their extended families in camp and also the Rozkem clan from Chicago. They came over and we drank while we watched my son and his friends move the beer they are brewing in our kitchen to "secondary fermentation". It tasted good.

The rest of the week has been spent swimming, laying around, touching base with work, walking around, driving around and generally, chilling. Chilling is good. The Dean at Camp this week is Scott Bruzek and he is talking about Justice and Mercy as a Christian. being a lawyer they are interesting discussions as it seems like all anyone ever tells me is about how they want "justice". It is interesting as a Christian to contemplate whether they are the same thing, or two sides of the same coin, or whether they run counter to one another. I am thinking that you cannot have one without the other. Anyway, that is what we do in the morning...talk about stuff like that. It makes me think outside myself though and that has to be good.

Wednesday we went to morning program and then with the Kuklas drove up to Glen Arbor and ate outside at Art's Tavern http://www.artsglenarbor.com/. Good burgers, great tater tots. Then we drove over to Traverse City and bought brian Kukla a "slack line" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slacklining. then we saw "Inception". Then we had dinner with John at "The Blue Tractor"http://www.bluetractor.net/. Then we came home and went to bed sober. "Inception" was an interesting (albeit long) experience and I am still processing it. There were some really meaningful themes in it. The whole dream within a dream, world within a world thing is interesting... bit not intellectually interesting. It is interesting in a way like unicorns would be interesting (this from a man who believes someone died for his sins). I have never been a huge Di Caprio fan (at least after "What's Eating Gilbert Grape?") and this did nothing to dispel that. He can act but... so can a lot of people.

Thursday.... Thursday was a good day. Got good nights sleep Wednesday and then made the decision not to play golf. Arcadia has one of the best golf courses in the country in Arcadia Bluffs. http://www.arcadiabluffs.com/. It is an awesome course carved out of the dunes and it is way too much course for me. Soooo...I walked on the beach, took a nap, read another book, went swimming in the lake and then went and met the golfers as they were coming off the course and had a few drinks. Brilliant. I came back, we ate, we drank on the porch until late. Good day.

Friday. I cannot really remember Friday. We had a shrimp boil for dinner.

Saturday it rained. We walked the dogs. Had breakfast at The Bayside in Frankfort. A friend from DC was in and I had lunch with him at Riggers. I finished another book while the rest of the gang played gin. Don and I went and gambled at the Little River casino. I downloaded the new Joe Pug EP. We cooked some steaks. The people who were coming in the next week at camp started to come by. Matt Carlson, Kyle Dewees and his betrothed Leah Meier. The Gallos. It made me sad i was leaving. We drank a little more. I went to bed early.

I got up early Sunday morning and headed south at 6:00 A.M. planning on taking a long way home through Indy to Shapiros Deli. You just get on 31 outside of Arcadia and point your car south. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Route_31. Somehow while looking for directions to Shapiro's northern Indy location in carmel I didn't make the right merge and ended up on highway 20 for about 20 minutes before I even noticed it. I of course am an idiot. To get an idea why this place is worth the long detour: http://www.shapiros.com/locations.htm. I ate a huge corned beef sandwich and a potato pancake. I noshed on the road home from Indy. I was happy.

I got home to a house being repainted. 95 degree heat and listening to the Cardinals pounding the Pirates. it was a good holiday. Too busy. I did not get done any of the important things I intended like discussing my future vocation with my wife or even spending any time with my wife. We have got to be smarter about this stuff. Anyway...vacation 2010 in Michigan. BOOM! that just hap[pened.

Still Ending Summer: Labor Day Weekend in Michigan

Soooo....end of summer REDUX! Just when you think it is really over... you go Northern Michigan for a long Labor Day weekend. We decided since our daughter wanted to work at camp for end of season when they never have enough staff that we should go up and hide for a weekend. Listening to the church bells chime at Trinity in Arcadia at 7 on Sunday night toking on a little cigar I bought up in Leland, reminds me that tomorrow we have to head back home for a violent 9 hour drive that will truly, and finally be “THE END OF SUMMER!”

This was a good trip. When i say we came up to hide I mean it in the truest of senses. We always know a lot of people up here during the summer but the end of summer, we knew only one couple at camp and only a few of the kids working. Very little pressure to socialize. So we did not.

We left Thursday afternoon after school and got in at 1:30 A.M. Friday morning which means we woke up here which is always good. It got down to about 50 over night and we were already avoiding rain at home. Win/Win. Friday was a slow day. breakfast with Laura up in Elberta and then getting laura settled in on staff. We then went and picked Blackberries There is something about picking your own that makes me feel... like an illegal immigrant. We got our fill and later on had dinner up at a place called The Manitou a little north of Crystal Lake. It was average. We came and went and looked around camp, saw our daughter briefly and went to the Big Apple bar and sat alone in the place with the owner watching Detroit come back and beat the brewers splitting a pitcher of Bud. Not a bad day.

Friday dawned early with a hangover. It started the same way every day up here does for me including yesterday which is to get up, feed the dogs, let the dogs out, let the dogs in, load the dogs in the car and go to the gas station to get the Traverse City paper. Unlike yesterday, today I made breakfast and then ate and read the paper. We then took a long walk around town, through the woods, out on the point and even a little beach walk. The I had to go over and help a retired Lutheran Minister trim his trees. I held the latter as he wielded a chainsaw over my head cutting branches. Fortunately he could only get a few and I dissuaded him from using the ladder to get up on the roof. No one died or broke a hip.

Continuing Friday we decided to take a canoe float. Everyone from Arcadia goes and floats the lower Platte which lazily meanders down from Platte Lake through Loon Lake to Lake Michigan but it is slow, boring and I have done it at least 10 times now. Feeling adventerous we decided to float the middle of The Betsie River which meant driving to Thompsonville. We went to a camp ground which contained primarily bikers and then got in the 15 passenger van (illegal everywhere now I thought) and were dropped off with our canoe at a road overpassing the Betsie in the middle of no where.

Once we were dumped with our canoe we started down the Betsie. It is supposed to be one of America’s premier trout streams but they had also warned us that in a week the sakmon would be running so thick up stream that they would be an obstacle. Hard to imagine. The river trends toward narrow and winds around like a snake. It also has a lot of obstacles in the form of trees and dead falls. Also, when it gets narrow it can get fast. It was a very tough float but we were all alone and din’t see a sole. It was probably too much a float for our skill level. We never tipped but we upended three times and ended with a lot of water in the canoe and a very sore butt. We left there getting done with the two and a half hour float in about two hours. It was bee-utiful.

We left there and attemoted to go to a bar our son had recomended. It was “The Laughing Pony” in Thompsonville. It had thiry motor cycles in front of it. We passed. Still soaked from the canoe float we decided to go to the Manistee County Fair! I had never been to a county fair. I had been to a State Fair and it was cool. Lots of really big pigs and really good (bad) food. What I learned was that county fairs, though amusing briefly in a sad, dirty kind of way, really suck. Some rides more suitable to a bad Catholic grade school picnic. A few BAD food booths (cold pizza, funnel cakes, coney dogs, I think that was about it.) a booth full of 4-H exhibits (and what not), two barns full of animals (the pigs were not that big) and that was about it. After my cold slice of pizza the most interesting thing was they had little kids peddling tricycles and pulling sleds with the big moving weight like a tractor pull. Their parents and other onlookers cheered the straining youths on and it was... creepy.

In our next installment....Highway 22 and the Michigan Circle! Wait for it... wait for it....

Still Hiding In Michigan

Soooooo.... another day of semi effective hiding is completed. Wednesday is kind of a day out of camp so with nothing to do there after morning program we hopped in the mini van and headed up to "Joe's Friendly Tavern" in Empire Michigan. http://www.empiretaverns.com/joesopen.html. Joes is self touted to have "the worlds best hamburger" and Empire is only about 40 minutes north so, what the hell? It was a nice trip on a beautiful day and we took another one of Laura's friends along who just finished her freshman year at Cincinnati as an Industrial Design major. She never stopped talking and provided excellent entertainment. Her dad worked for P&G for years...Tide Boxes.... something...I don't know. We headed up 22 which is the Michigan equivalent to Highway 1 in California. Not many Lake Michigan views but when they come they take your breath away.

Empire is in the middle of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Park and has a huge public beach that is pretty sweet. Long story short is that we ate 5 burgers and they were unremarkable. They were of medium thickness and we had a number of incarnations from cheeseburger to bacon cheeseburger to BBQ bacon cheeseburger. They did not ask how you wanted it cooked. All were medium well ad of that middle thickness we do not see too much of in the Lou. At home the burgers are squashed flat like the Steak n Shake/Carls burger or served fat like Blueberry Hill or O'Connells. This burger was an inferior and unloved version of The Village Bars version. We were underhwhelmed. Nothing wrong with these burgers but nothing memorable and certainly nothing that would lead to any "world's best" appellation. How about "Northwest Michigan's" Best? I could buy that.

Which brings us to another general point. Northern Michigan Cuisine is...wanting. People rave about places. Fine food, diners, roadhouses, breakfasts etc... I discussed it with the sometimes brilliant Tim Tiemann and sold him on the idea that food up here was like food in Germany. There was nothing great about it but also nothing abominable. It is not as bad as English food (an atrocity) but is certainly no France or Italy. In short, when dining here I surprisingly find the camp food at Arcadia as good as anything I can find in restaurant up here. Maybe I am wrong. Sue me.

So we are going to have another party tonight and another opportunity to add to my inestimable beer can pyramid. I have very high hopes. Spending some quality time now fleshing out the first CD of Neil Young's new box set retrospective. This is a monster which will take the rest of the summer to digest but when he sings "Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere"... I feel like he is speaking just to me and no one else. Neil sounds good in Michigan.