On the road and at rest - part 2

Certainly, travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living. - Miriam Beard

 Wow!  Cliche alert: time DOES fly when you're having fun!  And we certainly are having fun.  In fact, we are having so much fun that it has been a week since we left and there have been no real updates as to how our first week has gone.  I will do my best to keep things brief and entertaining and I plan on using lots and lots of pictures.  Hope you're ready!

We arrive in Lansing.  Right?  That would have been last week Saturday either very early in the morning or very late at night, whichever you would like to consider a 4 am arrival time.  Thankfully Andrew's Aunt Linda woke up to welcome us to their home and help us get settled.  The next morning was blueberry pancakes and eggs with coffee and chat time. After being cooped up in the car for their first leg of the trip, the dogs were quite eager and grateful for a chance to stretch their legs.  This is the back yard paradise the dogs were able to run around in while we stayed with Andrew's family.  I simply adore this back yard set up! 

Broken latches stink :( Having family willing to help you devise solutions for broken latches is wonderful!

Haven't quite decided if the Mark Twain is wrapped up like a present or if the ratchet straps are more like bandages for his wounds.  Either way, the solution works fantastically and after hmmming over it with Uncle Kevin we are going to stick with these sturdy travel ribbons for a while...like three months or so.  Kevin did an absolutely beautiful job of caulking the holes in the side in a way you can barely tell that anything is wrong.  

Grandma Rita is brilliant.  But what else would I find from the matriarch of this side of Andrew's family?  I am so happy I have been able to spend time with Andrew's father's mother.  Whew.  Relations are tough to write out without getting confused.  This was my first real scrabble game and I enjoyed it immensely even in the face of pro-scrabble players.  Dictionaries, lists, and triple word scores, oh my! 

I love this picture!  I sure hope Grandma Rita is up for a rematch when we see her today or tomorrow.  I have no doubt she will come out victorious once again but the fun is in the playing and that afternoon spent with my husband's family was so heart filling.  I can't believe that this hasn't been my family for my entire life! 

The pictures above are of the deck at Aunt Linda and Uncle Kevin's house.  It's like being in a fancy, cozy tree house.  

Left to Right: Uncle Kevin, Grandma Rita, and Aunt Linda

Left to Right: Lars, Grandma Rita, Aydan, Lief 

(I also just noticed that it's super hero t-shirt day :) ) 

Strawberry shortcake with whipped cream for dessert.  And then the boys found out that they could add ice cream to their creations of sweet.  

Lief's end result.  Wow. 

The three faux bros and their mountains of dessert. 

Oh my goodness, these three are just too much.  And I love all of them.  

The Mark Twain at its first rest stop.  Andrew was excited to be able to pull into the trucks and trailers part of the rest area for the first time...on purpose.  

Arrived at the cabin safe and sound! 

My travel bag and the book that tumbled out of it when I tossed it on our bed in the camper.  Any surprise that Tom Robbins and his lessons in loving and being an outlaw would be a travel companion on this journey?

Oh these boys!  It was a Beatles kind of day and I should not be surprised to see that they all have their own  Beatles shirts to wear.  By the way, they are having no fun whatsoever...

Content sigh.

The boys can play in that cold water all they want.  I will stay curled up in the sun...

with a journal :) 

And my tiny dog who found herself a little piece of shade while she was hanging out with me. 

Andrew decided it was bath time for Crumpets and felt that the lake would make a great bath tub.  Crumpets did not agree with him.  But she sure was happy when bath time was over and she could roll around in the dirt and grass and pine needles found down by the lake.  

Oh, Crumpets...

Rosie made herself a little nest in the cool dirt under the trees.  Nap time for this little dog seemed quite blissful.  

The Mark Twain in his natural habitat.  

"Fine.  You can groom me.  But I won't like it." 

Roughing it? Maybe not...My one addiction in life is Lush and I know I can use it and have it be safe for the environment and MY environment.  Lush girl forever and a ton of love to the girls in the shop at Fort Wayne.  I love you ladies!  You and my days of working at Lush will always have a place in my heart.  

Does anyone besides me think that is a sexy, sexy picture?  Percolator coffee, fried eggs and bacon in cast iron skillets and toast. Breakfast heaven. 

This beast came out looking gorgeous but was really just lasagna soup.  Andrew and I tried zucchini in place of noodles and while the flavor was close to perfect, the consistency was not what I wanted.  Definitely need to tweak how I do this...but practice makes perfect and if at first you don't succeed and blah, blah, blah.  We will try again!  

This pretty bug smacked right into the side of my face and then proceeded to wander around my lap while I watched it.  This picture does not come near to capturing how cool the colors of this tiny creature were.  Even the legs and antennae were these shimmering shades of green, blue, copper, and gold.  

Hanging out in the camper is so cozy and home like.  Not having a place to really call home, I'm glad we took the time to add some of our energy to this space before we left.  The dogs react so well to going into and sleeping in the camper, or just hanging out in there and at night when my meds and tiredness have claimed my brain its nice to have a place to comfortably be a recluse.  

A bit of a mess but isn't that what makes it feel like you live in a place?

Relatives in this cozy place as well!  Jim and Ann are just delightful people and have been so generous with their time and resources.  Their kayaks are amazing! I had never used kayaks with pedals before and I think I have found something that I really want to explore more, especially once we are out west.  The kayaks are built for taking things with you and we could learn to pack for kayak camping.  Yeah?  Sounds pretty awesome to me...

Yes, these spoiled girls will make themselves at home anywhere.  Robin has been an amazing hostess to us and the dogs have not missed out on a bit of her hospitality and kindness.  My favorite was seeing her crouch down between the two of them while they were outside and they covered her in doggy love and she gave as good as she got.  How can I be so lucky to have this extended family?  

View of the lake from the deck.  The trees keep everything up top so nice and cool and the days have been just right for enjoying the sunshine by the lake or on the lake if you want to head out in one of the boats from "the fleet". Two kayaks, a canoe, a paddle boat, and a row boat qualify as a fleet in my book for sure :) 

Just another picture of happy pups.  So happy they are comfortable with being in the camper.  

I don't know if I was able to keep it brief.  I did try.  There are so many things that aren't here!  Lief caught a turtle, and I nearly got sucked under a chain link fence while out kayaking with Andrew.  Thankfully, he's wicked strong and would do anything to keep his wife safe.  I love my husband.  I love my family.  I love my life!  

And, one a note of love...Andrew, Aydan and I all had a great time celebrating our friends', John and Joy, marriage yesterday. We were able to drive back to Fort Wayne for a weekend with our friends.  Strange how we are now "visiting" where we lived a mere week ago.  Also strange how you can feel about a place once you have begun to disassociate yourself from it.  I know that I am looking forward to being on the road again and heading up to Lansing and then back to the cabin.  

Next week will also be quite a good time.  Megan and her family will be in Traverse City for the week before her wedding and I am looking forward to the day trip we are going to plan for our families.  I haven't been to Sleepy Bear Dunes in years. It will be fun to see how I can handle that steep incline of sand as an adult :) 

Now I need more coffee and to figure out our plans for the day.  Much love to all!  

On the road and at rest - part 1

“What is that feeling when you're driving away from people and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? - it's the too-huge world vaulting us, and it's good-bye. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies.” - Jack Kerouac, "On the Road" 

“One goodbye…is never enough!” Each time I think that phrase in my head I hear that guy in Oklahoma (the musical, and maybe the sate) singing it when he’s showing that one chick how the Parisians say goodbye…some of you know what I’m talking about and some of you don’t, but the statement is still true whether you sing it in your head or not.  Fort Wayne, we cannot be limited to a one time goodbye!  We have to do it once…and then again…and yet again…and then we’ll really be gone…you know, until we come back to visit.  And we WILL come back to visit.   

Fort Wayne, we love you.  Well, I’ll speak for myself and say that I love you.  I truly do.  As the time to leave zoomed up to our front door and asked if we were ready to go it seemed as though Fort Wayne decided to put up just a little bit of a fight to show she (yes, I think of this town as a female. Pretty sure that’s an instinctual decision on my part) loved us too but also that she loved us enough to let us take our lessons we learned here and apply them to a new life in a new city that we would someday also fall in love with.  What a gracious place you are, FW, and this is just one of the many reasons why I adore you.   How fortunate am I to have been exposed to so many amazing people and ideas while living in the Fort?  I feel as though I was just uncovering the beginning of something on the fast track to an over flow of awesomeness.  I hope that the sense of community  I was only beginning to discover continues to grow.  It is an amazing thing to stumble upon and to be able to be a part of it, even if it’s more at the fringe than in the center.  To those shaking and stirring things up, I salute you, envy you and am inspired by you!  Please keep being the amazing presence you are!

But back to leaving…Saturday, our last day in the house, was some sort of semi-organized pandemonium.  We were finishing up with the packing and loading and pitching that we had been working on for most of the week but the time had come to truly break down home into house.    Each room was gone through systematically and was emptied and cleaned.  The process was tiring, frustrating and sad.  We will be returning to Fort Wayne in a few days but we will never return to our home there.  It is hard to say good bye when you have so many amazing memories of a place. 

Daylight was nearly gone by the time we were ready to fold up the camper and get our butts on the road. Walking around the camper I realized we had a side that wasn’t latched as it should be.  It was broken.  Fantastic.  The latches help to hold the top of the camper down while you’re driving, the front latches are especially important.  Not too shocking that the front left side was the one busted.  We drove with it, the determination that had kept us going through out the day turned into foolish stubbornness. We hoped that if we just pushed forward long enough to find dinner we could give it a short test run to see how it would do.  Well, the back left latch decided to join the front left latch and we now had a real problem.  Thankfully, extremely hungry and worn out  boys pick out places to eat located right by Meijer stores!  Yay for greasy deliciousness in the form of a Steak and Shake!  Dinner was consumed quickly enough and the hunt for ratchet straps (the solution we decided to try to keep the top of the camper down) was begun.  We were able to find what we were looking for and bought two, one for in the front, one for in the back…but neither Andrew or I really knew how to use them.  Thirty minutes later we had the Mark  Twain successfully strapped down and our trip to Lansing begun!  Whew!

We did arrive late (or would 4 am be considered early?) to Aunt Linda, Uncle Kevin, and Grandma Rita's house but thankfully Aunt Linda was awake to say hello and help us get settled in for the night...um...morning?  But that shall be the next part of the story!  I have been trying to get this done for days.  Who knew relaxing could be so time consuming? :)  Right now I have a morning kayak date with my husband and a travel mug of coffee.  Have an amazing day all!