Driving Home

For all of those who were worried about me, worry no more! I arrived safely home on Thursday night. There were a few snafus along the way, but we all made it home in one piece. On Thursday morning, we woke up on Mackinac Island and ate our last breakfast at the Metivier Inn. I wanted to bring a bag up to the breakfast room, so that I could scoop some of their delicious granola into it to take home, but I decided that that might not be the best idea. Instead, "Sacajawea" got the name and number of the place where they bought the granola from. From there, we packed up all our clothing and rode down to the Shepler's ferry dock on Main Street. The plan was to take the 10:00 ferry back to St. Ignace, and from there drive home the scenic route. We were running a little early (can you believe it!), and arrived just as the 9:30 ferry was leaving. As it turned out, we had the boat to ourselves. I guess no one leaves the island on a Thursday at 10 in the morning. I would have to say that this was one of the more interesting ferry rides that I've been on. Right as we were leaving the harbor, we went over this ginormous wave that rocked the boat, and then the wind picked up. We had to hold onto our stuff so that nothing would blow overboard, not to mention that my hair blowing all over the place, mostly in my face. It made taking pictures quite hard. When we got back to dry land, we had to put all the bikes up and pack all our luggage, which took a while. But after that was accomplished, we were on the road again, and everything was pretty much uneventful.
The first stop on the route home was Harbor Springs, where we stopped to get lunch. My family has been there several times before when we went camping at Petosky State Park, but no one else had. It's a really pretty town, right along Lake Michigan. It's a little stuck up for my taste, but there are some nice stores there, and the view out to the lake is gorgeous. We ate at a restaurant named Turkey's, which was delicious. There was a little mix up on the seating and ordering, but when we got the food, it was all forgotten. Just like the last time we went there, my mom and I shared a garlic and cheese pizza. When we ordered four pizzas, my mom was worried that we were going to have a ton of leftovers, but as it turns out, only four pieces were left after everyone was done eating. I ate two pieces of my own pizza, and also two more of OMY and Aunt "Rose's" pizza, which was a ham, pepperoni, and sausage on a thicker crust. It was funny to count down the number of slices that were left, which went down quickly as people kept on grabbing more. When we were waiting for our food, some of us went down to look at this bookstore called "Between the Covers", which was actually in the basement of another store, and my mom visited the American Spoon store across the street from the resturant to stock up on jams and jellies. After leaving Harbor Springs, we drove ten miles away to Petosky, so that we could stop at this place called Roast and Toast to get some coffee and such. Unfortunately, there was traffic between the two towns, so it felt a lot longer than ten miles, especially with my cousin in the background complaining that she had to go to the bathroom.
The next stop on the road home was Charlevoix. The main attraction here were the mushroom houses. For those of you that don't know, mushroom houses are houses that have these undulating roofs that look like they should belong in a fairytale. After driving through this one area where most of the houses are, we got back on the road again. Charlevoix to my house is 4 hours away, and it was already around 4 PM. We had told the people watching Kingsley that we'd pick him up at around 8, so we had to hightail it out of there. Again, things were pretty uneventful until my oldest uncle, who was driving the car with all of us girls in it, stopped to get some gas. We were around an hour away from home, but when we tried to start the car again after getting gas, it just wouldn't. It would sound like it was starting, and then would just die again. After several calls to my dad, who was in the other car, and waiting for around 10 minutes or so, the car just started on its own. Just like that, as if nothing had happened. We called my dad back and drove home. After arriving back at home, we still had to pick up Kingsley, so we got back into the car and drove and got him. When we picked him up, his tail had been groomed so that it no longer looked like a bottle brush. It still looks kind of weird, but in the opposite way (I think it's too short).
Yesterday, my sister, OMY, mom, Aunt "Rose", and I piled into my aunt's pick-up truck and drove all the way to Kalamazoo, which is two hours away. The reason was to pick up these copper gutters that we had ordered for our house. We didn't want them to be shipped to us, that was too expensive, so the only other option was to drive over there and pick them up ourselves. On the way there, we texted questions to cha cha (a free question answering service), which amused us. Some of the things we asked were school mascots of towns around here, and other stupid stuff like that. We wanted to figure out if it was worth it to stop at a nearby Walmarts to buy some of the local school t-shirts. My favorite mascot that we found out was the Sturgis (South Dakota) Brown High School Scoopers. Really - look it up! Anyway, my aunt ended up buying a Kalamazoo Central High School Maroon Giants and a Paw Paw Redskins t-shirt. On the way back, we had to pick up our produce from the CSA (Community Supported Agriculture). After that we just ate dinner and watched Star Trek (the new movie). I picked two cucumbers from our garden that were huge. They're basically the only thing that actually grown this year, everything else was either eaten by deers or just didn't turn out. As for today, there isn't anything exciting planned. My mom did make her branberry muffins for breakfast. Aunt "Rose" likes to call them "colon blow muffins" because of all the fiber in them, but they are actually really good. "Sacajawea" invited us all to her birthday party tonight. I might go, but other than that, nothing exciting. And for now, that's all I have to report.