Vacation!

Besides a trip to the Detroit Zoo on Labor Day - Chuck went on vacation!

 

His Michigan Hand-Map isn't as good as a real hand, but we decided to go spend a couple days in the Petoskey area.  

Just me & the Spouse (and Chuck!)

We got to the hotel Wednesday and if we leaned out over the balcony, we could see both the sunset and Little Traverse Bay. 

Right across the street was a local restaurant that claimed to have famous pumpkin pancakes - so I had to try them out.  

Fantastic! 

If you ever have the chance to go to JW Filmore's for breakfast - I highly recommend the biscuits & gravy!  

This bear has seen some things! 

Next we followed a Chuck's truck almost all the way to Petoskey State Park. 

Very soft sand!

This is also Little Traverse Bay. 

Still cold, tho! 

Next stop was Wilderness State Park, which isn't too far from Mackinaw City. 

This was a couple mile drive back into the park.  

We sat on the bench and enjoyed the breeze and sounds of the waves. 

This trail is off the parking area by the sign.  

If you look really close, you can see the Mackinac Bridge! 

Next we went thru this place called Cross Village and stopped to explore a couple cemeteries.  This one belongs to the Odawa (Ottawa) Indian tribe.  

It was actually sort of creepy, since none of the white crosses had names, and other than the few military stones, the few actual stones all belonged to women.  And a lot of crosses were in the woods!  

We made our first trip to Spirit Halloween!

It's really early in the year, but we drove the Tunnel of Trees.

It's only about 5% color, but still nice. 

We drove down toward Charlevoix and stopped at an overlook area called Big Rock Site.

It was really windy! 

The breeze off Lake Michigan was strong!

We took advantage of our state park pass and went to visit Fisherman's Island State Park. 

Waiting for the Spouse to catch up....

We finally started getting cold. 

So we went and got ice cream!

We are here!

We checked off 2 more of the real Maple Grove cemeteries in the state. 

There are 32!  

We've been to all the purple ones. 

When we got home, I thought I'd better start getting some decorations out in the front yard. 

I love this sign!

I'll put a couple more things out here & there - the skeletons are going to be dug out of the garage this weekend.  Hopefully me & the Spawn will have all the headstones painted and can get them out of the way.  Right now they're scattered all over the patio.  The plan is to start official set up on the 28th/29th.

Oh, good news!

The Disco Ball Skeleton finally came in!

And since we have literally 4 truck (or trunk) or treat events to attend this year, it's going to get some exposure!   It's a fabulous!

OMG - 45 days!!