Bye, Sleeping Bear

I figured I would be doing a lot of driving, after all the continental segment of the country is over 3000 miles wide.  But today’s drive from Glen Arbor to Chicago, seemed long and unnecessary.  My westward progress was minimal, basically the width of Lake Michigan.  But in order to get that far I had to drive seven hours and loop around the southern tip of the lake.  Mind you, I did get some vistas across the lake but that didn’t supplant the hours of sitting and driving.  Hopefully as I move west dramatically on Tuesday, things will be better.

Sue made a wonderful breakfast this morning of a scramble.  Scrambled egg, laden with tomatoes, green peppers, cheese, onion with a nice size pile of fried potatoes...and toast and grape juice.  It sure tasted better than my usual oatmeal and yogurt.  

Misha and me on Empire Bluffs

We walked Misha up Empire Bluff and gazed over the lake...it was cloudy but just about any day is beautiful up there.  There was a tug pulling a barge south about 3 miles out.  A bus load of Western Michigan University botany students were unloading as we got back to the car and noticed a car next to ours with a “naturalistforhire.ws” sign on it.  It was cold and they had camped out last night but being young and hearty they were eager for their hike up the bluff.

The forest canope

It wouldn’t take much for me to move back to Leelanau county.

The drive south was uneventful.  A brief stop at the “ghost ship” in Manistee.  An old lake ferry that has seen better days but now is open for tours, not that anyone was in line to board her.  Kind of a neat old ship though. 

The Ghost Ship

I got to Mike Belsky’s cottage in New Buffalo, MI about the time my eyes needed a rest.  Mike asked me to take a look at it on my way to his Illinois home.  Nice place to get away and less than two hours from his home in Highland Park.  The decor was distinctly Glen Lake oriented but Glen Lake is another four or five hours north, so this fills the bill for Mike’s leisure time.  

My LG cellphone is giving me the fits.  I was using the GPS on it...no other apps, I had it plugged into my car power but near Gary, Indiana the power died and the phone was super hot.  I am using Straight Talk as a service provider through Walmart...it’s a good deal but when you have any difficulty with your phone hardware, fingers point and shoulders shrug.  The woman Walmart said, that doesn’t sound good...but we don’t service them.  I have called the Straight Talk number before and been whisked to my helpful person in India.  So far they don’t know what to do and they seem reluctant to give me a new phone since it is only 3 months old.  The last phone helper I got said I needed to reformat the phone...bad idea.  I also lost all my phone numbers and it didn’t solve the over heating and fast battery use.  Being the cheapskate I am, I found this bargain rate for phone, data and text but the phone isn’t that strong.  I would imagine at some point I will be forced to get an iPhone or Samsung.  But I am going to go down swinging.