off to the pumpkin patch

For the third year in a row, we hit up the Harvest Valley pumpkin patch!  Rainy weather had kept us away last weekend, and we were quickly running out of time to get some pumpkins.  On Sunday we had some colder weather, but no rain, so we bundled up and headed to the patch.

We were greeted by minions!

Off to the fields!  The fields were picked over, and far more pumpkins were mid-rot than ready to be taken home, but we managed to find some great candidates for carving.  

With our bounty!  We headed to the scales to pay for the pumpkins, and added some tomatoes, apples, a whoopie pie, and some caramel apples to the tab.

Britton wanted to do the hayride, and luckily Memaw had enough quarters for us to get on!  

We were ready for some warming up, so we got some hot apple cider and turnovers, then snacked on the hay bales.  Let me tell you what you don't see - there was a woman named Sandy (so said her sign) who was singing on a small stage.  She had a great voice, but her song selections were just so morose!  We made it through "We've Only Just Begun" and then she started in on some other equally downer song, and we gave up and decided to leave.  We needed to get carving anyways!

After cleaning out the pumpkins (can there be a more squishy job?) we let Britton draw out the face on one.  Another one the hubs drilled various-sized holes with his drill, which I had seen in one of the 100 magazines I get per month.  For the third pumpkin I carved the face (in Britton's lap below).

Britton with her design.  Now we're ready for Halloween!

the day the crayons started first grade

Britton's school's first grade classes participated in an art show at the local public library!  Their theme was "The Day the Crayons Started First Grade," after the closely named books.  Britton, surprising no one, picked the pink crayon, and filled it with a self-portrait and a school bus,

Britton snuck a Shopkin into the bottom right corner

We all went and viewed Britton's public art debut last weekend!  At first we couldn't find her picture, but then the hubs found it on the library shelf - it had fallen down off the wall.  The librarians (and a Girl Scout troop that was painting the walls) watched with amusement as we took picture after picture of our artist and her work.

oh, MI: love me some craftsman

The coast of northern Michigan is covered in these beautiful craftsman houses, and I couldn't get enough.  Just look, and enjoy!

Lemony yellow front door - perfect!

And if you can't get a colorful house, get a colorful front door!

oh, MI: Mackinac Island

The hubs and I knew that Mackinac Island didn't allow cars, but it doesn't really hit you until you step foot on the island.  Tourists to Mackinac Island are called "fudgies" because of the huge amounts of fudge they buy - the island is known for fudge.  And the only way to get to the island is by ferry.  So as we all trudged off of the ferry, it took a moment to take in the horse carriages and bikes, and a total lack of cars!

Mackinac Island looks like Main Street USA in Disney World.  It doesn't look real - you'd swear you're on a movie set!  The old-fashioned buildings are just too perfect, the flowers too pretty, the houses too quaint.  This is Doud's, the first grocery store in America.

There's a fort, but we didn't go up to the top.  I was just fine to stand in front of it.

After 500 recommendations to get fudge, we stopped by Joann's Fudge and bought 1.5 pounds!  The store says you can freeze the fudge, but since I managed to lighten the load by half a pound just on the ride home, we don't have any left to freeze!

The most famous building on Mackinac Island is the Grand Hotel.  It costs $10 per person just to walk in the lobby, so we only got a view from the outside.  The building is stunning, and leaves you wondering how it ever got built on an island where every piece of wood, every furnishing came over by boat.

The Grand Hotel is old-fashioned in many ways, one of which is the dress code - ties for men, and no "slacks" for women!

We walked around the island, and almost got blown away by the wind!  

I loved this sign - "parking," and all you can see are bikes!  The only motorized vehicle we saw was a mart cart, and surprisingly didn't see any golf carts.  Snowmobiles are allowed, however, as it's really the only way to get around the island during the winter, when only an ice road connects it to the mainland.

We sat on the top floor of the ferry on the way home.  It was less than 50 degrees, then even colder with a 30 knot wind!  Poor hubs is sick this week, and I blame our insistence on "experiencing the moment" by sitting in that cold!  It did leave me with a great shot of the bikes crowding the dock, though.  That's true Mackinac Island.

oh MI, it was a fun trip!

The hubs and I have wanted to explore Michigan, and the fall leaves were reason enough to get on the road!  We left on Thursday for the long 8 hour drive, and the hubs really wanted to see Detroit on our way.  We decided to drive through and check it out.

Michigan Central Station, deteriorating

On a Thursday at 11:00 am, Michigan Avenue in downtown Detroit was empty.  I know nothing about Detroit in its old glory, but I imagine this a far cry from that city.

Any Eminem fans?  Heck yes, this is the real "8 Mile Road."  No Eminem sightings either.

As the temperature plummeted, we made our way further north.  And then, finally in the town of Petoskey, we crested the hill and saw this - Lake Michigan.  It was stunning, and so much bigger than I could imagine.  A co-worker of mine is from upper Michigan (her father grew up in Petoskey), and she recommended this little town for our mainstay.  Boy did she nail it!  Petoskey is an incredible town, with an adorable downtown, plenty of top-notch restaurants, and of course, views of the water.

We spent Friday in neighboring Charlevoix, at their annual Apple Festival!  Another gorgeous town, of course.  We bought apples - Sweet Tango and Honey Crisp - Michigan syrup, and cherry salsa. And admired the view.

The lake water isn't salty, so it has no smell.  And it's so clear, you can see all the way to the bottom.

On the way back to Petoskey, we stopped at one of the many parks and got closer to the water.  

The beach is made of rocks, and the waves crash on the shore, dragging the rocks down.  It's a sound that is more calming than ocean waves, and if I miss nothing else about Michigan, I will miss that sound.  We collected the most beautiful rocks we could find, and bottled the lake water.  Later, after a stop-over at Hobby Lobby, I filled mason jars with the rocks and water for me and Britton - our own little personal Michigan beaches.

A geologist at work told me about the Petoskey stones, and the hubs searched the beach for them.  Petoskey stones are 350 million year old fossilized coral, and only found in Petoskey.  

That afternoon we took a drive through the "Tunnel of Trees."  The windy, sometimes one-lane, road runs along Lake Michigan, and is lined with trees and stunning houses.  The sheer amount of trees does create a tunnel, and we were maybe a couple of weeks early for the true fall colors.

The pierhead is the place to watch the world-famous Petoskey sunsets.  Unfortunately for us, the weather didn't cooperate and the sunsets were cloudy every night.

 

 I've got so much more to share - the Craftsman houses that made me swear to build one (preferably next to a lake), and our trip to Mackinac Island.