Year Three - Days Twenty-Nine thru Thirty-One

Sam's View

Today we went to a koa it was about 20 miles from our property when we got there I saw a jumping pillow! I went on it for about 3 hours. It was fun!

The next day I went on the jumping pillow again and I met a new friend. His name is Jacob. I was on the jumping pillow almost all day!

The last day I went on the jumping pillow again also Jacob left that morning:) I was sad I didn’t do anything else really

Summer's View

We are still in northern MI, but since it is the holiday weekend and no one wants to work, we decided to go to a KOA about 25 miles south in Oscoda, at the mouth of the AuSable River.  Sam has been outside with the dozens of kids here for the past two days from sunup to sundown.  :)

Most of them left today, but he still has a handful to play with.  Here is what he has been doing most of the time:

Here is what Jim has been doing most of the time:  LOL

We did manage to see a couple of things around the area.

Year Three - Days Twenty-Four thru Twenty-Eight

Sam's View

Today we traveled about 380 miles to mommy’s new Michigan property. The property size is 10 acres but when we got there it started raining hard.  I thought there might be tornadoesL!

This will be a 2 week part. We found a well. I went in the well. We went to a store and met a big doggie. I tossed and caught a baseball by throwing it on the roof. There is a wood burning stove from the 80s in the garage. I painted and tore out carpet there was about 6 inches of water in the basement it was really cold. We got a pump going and I was getting bucketfuls of water and dumping it out through the window in the back. It was a nice house.

Summer's View

Sorry it's been a while since I've been on, but we were in northern MI, in a little town called Lincoln, that has no connection for our mifi, and our Hughes Net stopped working after a couple of days, so we have been without internet.

Why go to the big town of Lincoln, with a population of less than 400 people, and 25 miles south of the largest close town of Alpena?  Well, I sort of bought a house in an online auction last year, and this is the first opportunity we have had to visit it and see what it is all about!  LOL  It is an old farmhouse on ten acres that the previous owners lost to foreclosure, and it has been vacant for about two years.

We parked our RV in the driveway and dry camped for the first time for a few days - cool!  The only bummer was that it was cold and rainy most of the time.

It turns out the house has three bedrooms, one bath, one car garage, and a full basement, unfinished.  It has natural gas for heat, and cable, which, I am told, is a luxury in this area.  :)  Someone had put all new siding on it, and new windows and exterior doors, and they also winterized it (thank goodness) so no leaking water pipes.  There is a well, and it has a septic tank.

The neighbor across the street said his mother grew up in this house, and he believes it was built around 1897.  Wow!  It has an old carriage house type shed, and he said it used to have the biggest and best barn in the county, but it got struck by lightning a few years ago and burned.  Bummer!  He pointed out the flowering trees were apple and pear trees.

The roof had leaked in the past, but it had been covered with a tarp, which seemed to have held it off while it was empty.  We had the roof redone, and we are going to pull out some old carpet and paint a couple of rooms before listing it with the local realtor.  Anyone want to buy a house in northern MI about 5 miles from Lake Huron?  :)

Year Three - Day Twenty-Three

Summer's View

I did laundry and cleaned house, then worked on the blog and read all afternoon while Sam, Jim and Buster went canoeing with Bob and Elane and some friends of theirs.  When they got back, the first words out of Sam's mouth were "We were the only canoe that tipped over."  LOL

He also said he saved the binoculars, and the waterproof camera.

They arrived wet, and Sam and Buster went for a swim, without their permission!  :)

Year Three - Day Twenty-Two

Sam's View

All we did today was I went fishing and rolled down the hill. We also had a cookout.

Summer's View

LOL

Quiet day on the homefront - nice and peaceful and relaxing.

Year Three - Days Twenty and Twenty-One

Sam's View

Today I went fishing! I caught 5 fish. I also saw 2 feinting goats - they were cute. :) We stayed in the rv the rest of the day. The next day, we went to the Hudson Museum. They had almost all of the Hudson cars there! There were lots of cool cars. There was a beat up station wagon. That was daddy’s car. :) After that we went to the Fisher Lake Inn. There were thousands of mayflys there.

Summer's View

There is a stream just a few yards down the lane from Bob and Elane's, so they took Sam fishing there.  Some neighbors right on the stream have a menagerie of animals, so they showed Sam they're fainting goats, a baby goat they had rescued, a pony they had rescued, and various cats and dogs that have found them over the years. LOL

Sam fished all afternoon, while we adults finished up the day with a few cold beers and lots of chatter.  The baby goat kept wandering over and pulling on my hair from the back - he obviously thought it was funny!  :)  I got to feed him one of his bottles, and he made quick work of it.

The next day, Elane and I went to yard sales all morning, and then Bob took Jim and Sam to the Hudson Museum.  For dinner that night, Bob and Elane took us to a favorite of theirs, the Fisher Lake Inn, which sits right on the water.  As Sam mentioned, and much to the restaurant's chagrin, thousands of mayflies were on-site that day, so no one could eat on the patio!

Sam was informing us that the mayfly only lives a day or two, so we were "lucky" to see the spectacle.  LOL

Year Three - Day Nineteen

Sam's View

Today we traveled from Evansville, IN to Sturgis, MI. We left at about 10:15 and the drive was about 6 ¼ hours and the distance was about 370 miles. We stayed at Uncle Bob and Aunt Elane’s house.

Summer's View

Travel day - we parked the RV in Bob and Elane's yard - perfect fit!  :)  Their place looks as gorgeous as always!

Year Three - Day Eighteen

Sam's View

Today we went and saw mommy’s houses we saw her original house we saw her farm we saw her town we saw her dad’s gas station we even ate at one of the restaurants she ate at when she was a kid.

Summer's View

From the looks of that "sentence" above, I can see we need to discuss run-on sentences! LOL

I am actually surprised he remembered as much as he wrote down.  I seem to remember he was chattering the whole time I was driving about a new set of earphones he had just gotten.  :)

The restaurant he spoke of was Thompson's BBQ on Atkinson Street, and I ate there as a young adult.  I always tease Jim about not knowing what "real" bbq tastes like, so he finally found out.  YUM!

We even bought a Powerball ticket at dad's old station for luck, but we didn't win. Darn!  :)

I have to say, Henderson is looking good! Not a lot has changed in 17 years, and everything looks like it is in good shape!  I did notice the riverfront is now different, and they tore down Beardsley's...old news to those of you in the area, I know.  And, of course, Gibb's is still rockin'!

We walked around the lake at Audubon State Park - even Buster got to go!