'23/#16 International Travelers

 Friday was a blast with all the old cars. Over 900 entries in St Ignace's 47th annual car show, a local event that everyone looks forward to and we see why. Saturday we headed farther north for another local event. 

Saturday we participated in the Sault Ste Marie International Bridge walk. This was the return of an annual event that had been cancelled since 2020 due to the Covid epidemic. People were excited to have it back. Representatives of both Sault Ste Maries, Michigan and Canada, were there to welcome back the event as well as all the supporters and participants. After a few speeches the crowd of at least 500 set off to walk accross the bridge that was closed for the event. Overviews of the Soo Locks and a warm welcome by Canadian officials and we were international travelers again. Water and snacks were provides and buses were available to drive everyone back to the U.S. 

Having spent time in south Texas and now in the U.P. of Michigan we can say that we have walked from Mexico to the U.S and from the U.S. to Canada...... just not in one trek.

Once again customs in Canada was a simple I.D. check and "welcome to Canada" while the return through U.S. was just short of a cavity search. I understand post 9-11 cautions but these were buses designated for bridge-walk participants. "Why are you in Canada?", "where are you from?" ( my license is in your hand!), "where did you work?", and "you're done,"! No thank you or welcome back. U.S. customs agents need to get personality lessons from our much friendlier Candian neighbors that man the customs check points headed north.

Anyway that was our weekend and this is the end of this blog. Back to work. The Fourth of July crowd will replace the car show crowd in the campground next week. Back to back busy weeks and then just the steady summer tourists and campers that keep this campground going.

So having retuned from our world travels (wink, wink) I will sign off from our home in St Ignace because.....

Home is where we park it,

Frank and Mary

'23/#15 Touristng And Localing

 We are getting out and about more now that we are familiarizing ourselves with the area. This weekend all kinds of things were going on so we decided to join in. There was also some chores around the rig because, like I've said before, this is not a vacation. It is a lifedtyle.

As always, chores come first. I had wanted to do some construction in the basement and after the battery/charging issues that project moved up the priority list. Friday morning we went  to town to drop off some mail and pick up a prescription.  That was first because the Annual St Ignace Car Show started that afternoon. When we got back home the tools came out and the work started. A couple of hours later my modifications were done and looked pretty good if I do say so. 

The work was done. Now it was time to play. We loaded the E-bikes in the truck and drove into town. The bikes worked out just as we had hoped. We were able to ride up and down the main street in town and check out all the cars. With the cars cruising at slow speeds as most in town car shows do we could ride along with them while we checked them out. Two and a half miles up and two and a half miles back and we had seen most of the cars in town. Ooohing and aaahing and lots of pictures made for a great time.

Birthday Present?

Saturday would be another day so I will sign off and continue this blog tommorrow. Goodbye from our home in St Ignace because.....

Home is where we park it,

Frank and Mary

'23/#14 Adaptability Is An RVer's Best Tool

 We have been here in Michigan for three and a half weeks and things have been going non-stop. We are settled into our site and have been working for the past three weeks. The job is not that big a deal, it just takes a while to get into a routine. We are getting to that point. The people we are working with are great and easy to get along with which is always nice.

When we got here the batteries in the RV were giving me some trouble. I suspected that they would need replacing but my multimeter wasn't working. I borrowed one and sure enough the charger was fine but the batteries would not take a charge. A trip down to Cheboygan and a toasty credit card had everything working just fine. We were OK plugged into the utility pedestal but lots of thing in an RV work on 12volt so it needed to be dealt with.

The site we are on is a water and electric site with no sewer hook up. That means alternate ways of disposing the waste water. We have a "blue boy" that is a portable waste water tank. When things get full we dump it into the "blue boy" and dispose of it at the dump station. There will inevitably be some spillage (yuk) so I decided to get a macerator pump. This will move things along more efficiently and keep all the nastiness contained. I needed some hose and fittings so we took a trip to the nearest Home Depot in Petosky. Once everything was assembled it worked like charm.

One way or another we will find our way around Michigan. Today was a miserable day weather wise. The high was only 58 degrees and drizzle all day long. It was a good day to stay in and stay warm. Mary made some chilli and there is bean soup in the near future. All the foods that warm ones cockles, whatever a cockle is. Something to do with the latin language. 

Well I am going to sit in front of the electric fireplace and warm everything that isn't a cockle. That's the scoop from our home in St Ignace because.....

Home is where we park it,

Frank and Mary