WInter Solstice

So here it is. The entrance of winter. The nights get longer and the days get colder. Flip flops have been replaced by snow boots and a walk down to the beach now entails shoveling a path down the hill to the entrance. And at the end of that shoveled path is a solid coat of white that makes it nearly impossible to tell when the beach has stopped and the lake has started, that is if you don’t take notice to the docks randomly sprouting up where, I suspect, the edge really is.



Yes, the time has come for taking shorter walks more often due to the threat of possible face frost. Many would say that I’m straight up just not prepared, which as much as I would like to think that I am prepared for anything all the time, I’d have to say that I may have to agree with them in this specific instance. But that’s okay. I’m pretty alright about taking shorter walks more often for now. I mean, you have to be flexible sometimes.
Good outdoor and winter gear. It’s one of those things I come across that takes so long to make the jump and almost every time I just wonder why I didn’t just do that earlier and realize that it is totally worth investing in. And then, although it seems that I should know better, the pattern is just repeated over and over with every piece of “investment” gear I end up buying.
It’s kind of like getting new tires. Everyone knows that they are one of the most important features on your car but it seems like the process gets stalled when it comes to getting new ones. And then when I finally get them I realize that half the problems I thought I had with my car were all due to ridiculously shabby tires and that I was very consciously driving a death trap every time I turned the ignition and attempted to drive anywhere.
Of course, I don’t do that anymore. That one finally stuck.

Anyway, where was I? Ah yes, the emergence of winter. The lack of daylight. The cold. The snow. The chance to hibernate for a little. The snow started a couple of weeks ago and, with the exception of a few days last week, hasn’t come to a full end yet. There are times when just a few flurries are floating by and the skies are spotted with a distinctive blue. Then there are times that it’s tough to see the lake out the back window of our cottage.



They say that this is due to “lake effects,” though I’m a little unsure how to tell the difference between a true snowstorm and a storm that is brought upon by lake effects. This topic may need a bit more research to come up with a definitive answer. You can’t expect me to get this stuff right away…I am only a greenhorn in this area, you know.

So needless to say, with all this sporadic snow activity we’ve had lots of time to get comfortable in the rental cottage. Between taking walks, cooking, playing music, arting and crafts, well, most of our snow days have been eaten up pretty quickly.
I finally finished some knitting projects that I started during the summer. I was a little bit humbled after that first attempt I made at knitting but I guess, not everything can end up the way you want it on the first try.
My second attempt, a scarf of course (the next logical step after a pot holder), came out much more to my liking. I stayed within a thirty-stitch parameter for the entire length of the scarf and even incorporated a couple different yarns into the mix. Not too bad.



With a little more knitting experience under my belt and confidence in my technique (which to this day may still be the wrong technique, but hey, whatever works, right?) I upped the ante and used the same scarf pattern but incorporated into it different stitches and yarns. I was happy with the final product although it wasn’t exactly how I had imagined when it was finished.



This is when I learned about the importance of using yarns that are the same weight instead of my usual approach, which was to strictly match yarns based on color. The scarf ended up a little wavy, the thicker yarn making wider areas and the thinner making skinnier ones, but I use it everyday and it definitely serves its awesome purpose.

One of the most recent projects I finished was a little bit more of a crap shoot, not really knowing what I was going for until I got to a transition point. At first I thought about making it a soft laptop bag (I know, how frickin’ dorky). Then I thought maybe it could just be turned into another pot holder. They always come in handy, right?



In the end I decided on a simple shoulder bag (no, not a purse). I never really planned too far ahead for the next step of the process and didn’t have any real pattern to work off of, which made it fun to make but also meant that I had to redo a few steps in the process too. Oh well, it probably turned out better that way.
I am usually pretty hard on just about everything so I was also a little concerned with the durability and strength of the bag. I gave it a few week trial run to test her out and she passed with flying colors. I use it just about everyday and it seems to keeping up with me pretty well. If this doesn’t redeem my knitting status at least a little bit, well, I’m not sure what would.

Back From The Greatful Undead

So the leaves have finished their cycle and the final display of the last colors clinging to the trees have been shaken off their branches marking the ground with signs of the approaching season.


This is not the only evidence of this annual change though, you can feel the change in the air. There is a briskness that snuggles well into the interlude of seasons, not cold enough to complain about but past the point of having any chance of a warm breeze. During the day you rely on the power of the sun to bring warmth. After the sun drops below the horizon you bundle up. And first thing in the morning, well, you bundle up even tighter, walk outside and give your body a wake up call that coffee can’t even compete with.


And this was just the perfect weather backdrop for Halloween weekend. The night sky was clear, only being slightly highlighted by the half moon hanging low in the sky. We were invited to a costume party on Saturday night and although most of our things are still in storage in PA we did happen to bring our bagful of wigs and makeup (you obviously never know when you might need things like these). So with one day notice (and help from my mother’s old hippy wardrobe) we were able to pull together some costumes to make for some good first impressions.


One of the neatest things about going to costume parties, especially when you don’t know anyone anyway, is the casualness of conversations with strangers. You don’t know them, they don’t know you and to make it even better neither of you really knows what the other person looks like. I talked to a skeleton named Terry for half an hour and there is no way I would ever be able to pick him out of a lineup. I saw a vampire talking to a nurse. Batman talking to a witch. Julia Childs talking to the devil.
And there we were, just a couple of zombies caught in the wrong place at the wrong time back in 1967, shootin’ the breeze on a chilly October night.

Back To Life. Back To Reality.

Yep, it’s back to the norm. Back to schedules and paychecks. Back to alarm clocks and cups of coffee in the car on the way to work. And, most importantly, back to Sunday’s off!

I’ve never had much of a religious affiliation but I have to say that the one thing that I have taken from the Good Book is the observance of the day of rest. Even when we were on the road we participated in this weekly holiday hence promoting No Drive Sundays as one of our official policies. There’s just something about it though, the “feel” of a Sunday that is different than Saturday, even though they share the same weekend label. It’s the day when everything is just okay the way it is. There’s no reason to fuss or stress or rush anything that you do. And to feel no guilt when choosing your path for the day.

If you want to lay around in your sweats all day, immersing yourself in a story so deep that you lose hours of your day to an alternate world of words, there’s nothing wrong with that.
If you want to take a long, slow drive through archway canopies of trees alongside fields that only a month or so ago were blossoming with fruitful life just for something to do, that’s okay too.
Or if you decide to indulge in a refreshing, taste bud awakening beverage with your two eggs and side of home fries, I say why not?

Although this past Sunday we didn’t really do any of these things exactly the way they were just stated, parts of all those things did occur at one point or another during the day. And as cool as all of that was, I would have to say the best part of my Sunday was the afternoon walk we took with the dogs through forests and along seasonal sand covered backroads that weave in and out of the hills surrounding the cottage.



The conditions were ideal, a day warmer than most, a slight breeze sweeping through the tree tops, shaking the red and orange and yellow leaves, eventually jostling them from their limbs and falling lazily to the green cushioned forest floor.



The colors seemed to pop, exploding out of the page like one of those pop up books I remember as a kid, contrasting against the blue backdrop of the afternoon sky and the steadfast deep green of the sporadically placed pines mixed into the forest landscape.



Like I said, it was definitely one of those days when everything seemed to fit into place without effort. It was definitely a Sunday.

Shifting Gears

So things are here in Michigan are settling comfortably on our end. We're getting to know the area better everyday, learning more roads, short cuts and back ways to and from town. We’ve been trying to get into Traverse City most days, whether its to run errands or just simply walk around the streets to peak into shops. It’s not a terribly large town so it’s not like it takes a long time to figure things out, but it is a real pretty so it’s worth the trip just to walk around.

The downtown area sits in a little coobie hole on the bank of the west arm of the Grand Traverse Bay which flows into Lake Michigan about 25 or 30 miles north of here.


Seriously, doesn’t this picture look like it should have an advertisement for an exotic, and much needed, Caribbean vacation overtop of it. For a fresh body of water it’s hard to beat those colors…and the beach. I swear, that’s half the reason for moving here, just to be able to see this view almost everyday.

Boardman River also meanders through town, spilling into the bay at the edge of town. Some of the river has a slight feel of Amsterdam to it, with boats lining the canals as if they are the primary mode of transportation for those who own them…and probably their primary residence as well. The river is apparently also a decent little fishing spot with salmon as big as a toddler swimming around freely like they own the joint. Though the other day we saw a man fishing on the banks pulling out one of those suckers reinforcing the fact that they don’t indeed own the river after all. But, hey, it’s worth a shot, right? I have yet to get a fishing license, but I have the day off tomorrow so that may be the day. I mean it’s worth it. Especially if there are two foot long salmon cruising casually through nearby waterways, just waiting to be served on our dinner table. Mmmmm…you certainly can’t complain about that meal after a long day of work which, I might add, I just finished…the first in four months. Wow, that feels great to say. Both that I took four months off from working and that I started working again after four months. The whole cycle, for me personally, can be boiled down to a very delicate relationship between the two. Man I loved being on the road but, as sick as it sounds, it also feels good to be back at work, although I am only working part-time so I’m not really sure if that counts or not. But there is a part of RV life that I do truly miss, as there were also those things in stationary house life that I missed when we were in the RV. I guess that's the ebb and flow of life. Is the grass always greener? I don't really believe that it is but I do think that there are times that you need to take advantage of a very real opportunity that confronts you, even if only for a passing moment. I mean, after all, that is how we were able to sell the house and find our perfect motorhome in the first place. I believe that some things are truly meant to be and buying the Ultrastar was, from the first moment I laid my eyes on her, one of those defining moments.

Although we are no longer using her as our primary residence and source of transportation we are lucky enough to have the space to park her outside our cottage so not only do I get to look at that beautiful piece of machinery as soon as I wake up every morning, I am also able to open the door to her loving and welcoming interior anytime I want. To be taken in by her inner beauty. To be devoured in her round curves and the smooth lines of oak wood finish. To sit in her now is just as it has always been, comforting and warm, though we have emptied her out, taking out what we needed for our new home which deep down makes me feel incredibly unfaithful, like I'm cheating on her. I don't like to think of it like this but I feel like we've left her as an empty shell, just as we found her. Lost of a true personality, lost of her own identity. But I know this isn’t the way it really is and that she's not completely finished with what she was meant to do, where she was meant to go. And I don't feel like we're finished with her either. Let's face it…she's a 21 year old workhorse, tuned up and ready to spread her wings and fly on the endless highway whenever we need her to snap onto action.

For now, though, we'll let her rest on a soft sandy cushion under the shade of the pines and enjoy the life of the lakes just as we are. After all, even the most determined of us need to take a break once in a while. And, in our case, sometimes you need to shake out the cobwebs, dust off the boots and kick start the old engine to get it started again. But not without a true appreciation of what you've already been through, where you've been and what got you there.

Back To The Future

So Michigan it is!!! Yes, we decided to overwinter in a place that gets colder, has more snow and a longer winter than PA. And no, we're not nuts. Well possibly a little bit, but I don't think that had much to do with our choice. So we headed back from Wyoming..back to a spot that we spent a week at a little over two months ago. We also did it much faster than we did on the way out, taking only nine days to cover the same ground we just covered in over two months . It was a weird feeling to drive most of the days but once we decided to actually do this we were also pretty excited to get there and see what the scene was like. Although we did rush a bit on the way back (rush by our definition is apparently to drive more than five hours a week), we did get to camp on an island on the Mississippi River and spend a few nights along Lake Michigan on the southern side of the Upper Peninsula, a spot that we missed on the way out.



Opting to spend the winter in Michigan rather than in the southwest like we "planned" wasn't just a split second decision though…well it kind of was but it was a confident split second decision. It really was an area that we both felt we could possibly start something new, with all the things that we like to have around us, some of which we have yet to have in a homebase. Beautiful natural areas right outside our door, lakes just about everywhere you look, the largest freshwater source in the world at our fingertips, a decent job market, four microbreweries, a beach town feel. Well that's our list so far…though it may grow the longer we stay, who knows. For now, we're just trying out something that Kev and I have never done together in the ten years we've been married. We figured we might as well… we've got nothing to lose by trying.

So we have an eight month lease on a small cottage on Arbutus Lake, about six and a half miles south of Traverse City. The lake is actually five small lakes connected together, the cottage sitting on the south bank of the southernmost lake.



During the summer the cottage rents by the week so we have all of the conveniences of a summer vacation rental at our disposal…row boats, motor boats, docks, a small beach. Unfortunately we know that there we will only have a couple months to take advantage of it, but something is better than nothing, right?? And we always have ice fishing (beer drinking) in the winter which we have heard is a lot of fun. And don't forget ice skating and cross country skiing, not that I have ever really done either…so if I don't take this opportunity to try it, well, I should just curl up under my blanket and succumb to winter blues. Luckily we already have ice skates that we got a few years ago but never really had the chance to use in PA so that's one hurdle out of the way. Now we just need to pick up some cross country skis and a fishing license, which is cheaper with Michigan residency so yesterday I became an official Michigan resident…license, voter registration, a Michigan plate on my new set of wheels, which is probably (definitely) the nicest car I've ever had.



I mean, I'm 31 years old, don't I deserve it? I even promised Kev that I would do my best to keep it the nicest car I've ever had. Now all I need now is a job. But that will come and, quite honesty, I barely even started looking yet. Luckily it's a town driven on tourism so the service industry is pretty steady and I'm definitely not opposed to slinging coffee again for a while. But, in reality, I'm not really opposed to doing anything for a while to get things going and get our feet on the ground. Who knows what will happen, where we'll end up working, what we'll end up doing. All I know is that we have eight months to figure it out so it's worth giving it a solid chance…and if everything works out hopefully we'll still be in Traverse City next year at this time. And if not, well, the life we lived for the last three and a half months wasn't too shabby either.

Under A Sky So Blue

So Story lies on the eastern edge of the Bighorn Mountains, the easternmost range of the Rockies, in between and equidistant from the towns of Buffalo and Sheridan. Every road in town, except one, turns into dirt a mile or two outside of town and stops abruptly in a dead end. Appropriately so, the one lonely continuous road in town is a dirt road that doesn’t really seem to connect Story to anything that couldn’t be taken through another route. But it does go past the Wagon Box Fight Historical Site, a famous battle in 1867 between the U.S. Army and Lakota (Sioux) Indian tribes who were under the leadership of Crazy Horse and Little Wolf (there is speculation that Red Cloud had also played a part in the attacks though the truth behind this was never confirmed). Although the Sioux Indians had a larger army (estimated at 2,000), the U.S. had recently acquired new weaponry that the Lakota did not know about and could not match. The 9th Infantry, comprised of 31 men and protected only by 14 wagons lying end to end in a circle, survived repeated attacks by the Sioux. It is reported by Captain James Powell that his infantry of 31 killed an estimated 60 Sioux and injured another 120, although there was never a clear establishment of the true numbers of the encounter.

Boy do I get distracted…
Anyway, most of the other dead end roads in town lead to either historical sites or trailheads that enter the valleys of Bighorn National Forest. This has been a pretty convenient situation for us motorhome owners being that it’s not real practical to take down the awning and batten down the hatches to make a mere two mile jaunt to enjoy the trails within the forest. It adds three or four miles of road walking to the excursion but that’s definitely not a bad thing and the dogs certainly aren’t complaining about it.



We’ve all had a great time cruising the trails of the national forest, climbing hills that are higher than anything else we’ve hiked so far and taking in spectacular vistas of rolling dry land hills that seem to stretch the whole way to South Dakota.



Some hikes took us along creeks gushing with mountain melt off.





Some took us along ridges that led into fields of wildflowers and grasses. And there were always those idyllic spots to stop and eat lunch or think about our next move after Story, where we want to spend the fall and winter months. We knew from the beginning of the trip that this time would come, to consider our over wintering options, to consider what is most practical, most realistic for the next six months or so.
We originally thought we’d like to make it to the southwest for the winter season. Maybe store the Ultrastar in an RV Park, maybe get jobs, hang out in the desert for a while. But the way things have gone so far, with us sticking to the goal of going slow and stopping often, has put us in a slightly precarious situation. Here we sit, just east of the Bighorn’s, Bitterroot’s and the Cascades and north of the Rockies, during a time of year that can see weather changes quicker than a blink of an eye. It’s been getting into the low 40’s or upper 30’s most nights during the last two weeks, just an inkling of what to expect real soon as the norm. Yellowstone was even shut down for a day last week due to substantial snowfall. And we know this is just the beginning of a long winter for this region of the country. Do we make a run for it and continue through Wyoming and Idaho and hope that we don’t get stuck in a situation that we can’t dig ourselves out of? Do we zigzag around mountain passes in Colorado and Utah in hopes of finding a clear path to the southwest? Do we backtrack a bit to see what comes of that direction?
A decision will eventually be made and no matter what it is, it doesn’t really matter, because there is really no “wrong” choice here. Like they say, if it’s worth the going, it’s worth the ride.

There's A Story Behind Every Town

A few days at Keyhole State Park and we were off, on our way to a small town just east of the Bighorn Mountains…Story, Wyoming. Some friends of ours from PA moved to this town of 600 people a month or so ago and are settling into the scene seamlessly and comfortably. It didn’t take long to get there and by most other people’s driving standards we probably should have actually gotten there a week ago. But why rush? Especially when there’s so much that is easy to miss in between.
One of the reasons I think this country is great is just when you think you’ve possibly gone through the most barren areas of the U.S. your next drive is even more desolate than the one before. Although we have done fairly extensive traveling throughout the U.S. I had almost forgotten that there is still a lot of wide open space out there that hasn’t been built up with cookie cutter developments and strips malls offering the same things that are offered at the strip mall across the street. And that it doesn’t have to take you half an hour to drive eight miles. But there’s also the other side of things, the fact that in areas this spread out and open, well, you have to drive to get just about everywhere. For me, I think I’m aiming for the happy medium. I’m not exactly sure what I mean by that except that I really like the idea of getting everything you need in the town that you reside and not be forced into going to the SprawlMart stores off the exit ramp on the highway. To have conveniences that are accessible in a downtown area (grocery store, market, place to see music, etc.) but still be able to get to the next town over without too much hassle and without battling bouts of road rage. If anyone knows the town I’m referencing, please let me know because I’m not really sure where it is myself!

Anyway, back to Story. So we pulled into town just in time for the start of Story Days, a community celebration of town pride. There were plans for festivities all weekend including a dutch oven cookoff, a parade, food and craft stands, and live music. A pretty good scene for a town of 600. Well we missed the cookoff on Friday night though judging by the responses from the crowd the prepared foods were pretty impressive. There were lots of comments along the lines of “there’s no way the (insert food) was made in a dutch oven. I don’t believe it.” If that’s not a testament to the quality of the food that was offered, well I don’t know what is. I, myself, have never used a dutch oven but as far as I’ve heard you can cook anything to perfection in them. The atmosphere at the cookoff was real inviting, even for strangers like us. Bluegrass music resonated through the air and laughter was escaping from people everywhere you looked. You could tell this community had something going on.
Although we missed the cookoff on Friday night, we made sure not to miss the parade on Saturday morning with its eclectic representation of antique cars, the 7th calvary drum and bugle corps, cowboys shooting guns and a float created by the Story Women’s Club (which our friend Caroline was a part of).




There was a great mix of designs and organizations and fun was to be had by everyone during the parade. The winner for the best float went to the Story Book Tails (although we were rooting for Caroline, of course) which, I have to say, was a pretty awesome creation.

In addition to this being a big weekend in Story we also had tickets to see The Gourds (Austin, TX good-fun band) at the Babcock Theater in Billings, Montana on Saturday night. So we hit the road during the late afternoon and made our way two hours northwest towards Billings. Apparently the city of Billings doesn’t have the best reputation and, being that crystal meth detox centers lined the street on our way into town, the reasons behind this accusation were clear. But a town is a town is a town and we weren’t there to cast judgement or develop a concrete opinion of the area. We were there to see The Gourds!!






And being that we only ever saw them in PA, well, it was neat to see what a Montanian crowd was like (for the record, there were a bunch more hippies here than the PA shows we saw, but I could have expected as much). Overall well worth the two hour drive there, as well as the two hour drive home after the show (although I didn’t drive so I was able to catch a few zzzz’s in the back seat) and, as always, we look forward to seeing them the next time they’re playing a gig near us, wherever we may be.