A Shout-Out to the People of Michigan

We have had quite a lovely day. We started out by leaving our hotel armed with granola bars, apples and water, and we drove to the village of Frankenmuth. This little town celebrates its Bavarian heritage, so my German hubby wanted to go see it's beautiful flower-laden downtown. On the way, we saw the biggest Christmas store (scroll to the bottom to see the panoramic tour). I think my friend Gail and my mom would both have stayed there for hours. We needed to get on the road, but even so, our 'let's take a peek' took at least an hour. It was fruitful, as we finally found a star for the tree that we both like, but it was sooo over the top.

While there, we asked the cashier where she would recommend us going for breakfast. She said Satow's, on main street...and then added that it was the drugstore. We were a bit surprised, but we have learned to trust the locals. So we found this lovely little building that has a series of murals painted on the outside wall. It is a drugstore, yes--but it is also this very cute eating place. I loved watching two oldtimers at the counter, engaged in conversation, and shifting their weight on the swivel stools. We had a great, affordable breakfast too. As a little Bavarian town, of course the sausage was homemade. They even had stollen!

We travelled right down to the south westernmost corner of Michigan, spent an hour in Indiana as we made our way around the bottom of Lake Michigan--a great lake that we never saw! We stopped in Illinois, where we are staying at a lovely resort hotel. Wise and frugal hubby scored a GREAT deal!

We're tired, and have a long day tomorrow. So, good night lone blog reader!

Deals, deals and more deals

This morning we woke up to the beautiful lake, and our beautiful friends, and a gorgeous breakfast. We slept well, we ate well! Afterwards, we drove to St. Jacobs. We started at the farmer's market, where M found landjaeger sausage. He was delighted! And he ate them before I got more than a whiff of them (which truthfully, was probably quite enough). We bought cherries to eat on the way, and our friends filled their cooler with goodies to take home. My find? Stroopwaffels! Who knew that I didn't have to fly to Holland to get them?

After a morning that went by far too quickly, we bid adieu to our friends and continued west. We had a pretty uneventful border crossing, though we are not sure that the red jaguar in the next lane fared as well!

It didn't take us long to realize we were going south when we intended to go west--but after a quick (and much cheaper) tank of gas, we had it all straightened out again. We arrived in Birch Run at a reasonable time, and spent two hours at the outlet mall. It was productive--all the kids birthday and Christmas gifts done, which will be helpful when we take them home this week.

But we are tired, so now we are crashing at the hotel, ready to head out again tomorrow.

Gearing up for a roadtrip!

Tomorrow we leave for an extended road trip, which will take us around the great lakes, through hubby's home town where we will also check in on Master Jack and Miss Abby; then a quick visit with my cousin, and a look at my home town. We'll go to the cemetery, and then boot it to my parent's place to celebrate their 50th. I started to tell you all about that, but they read this blog, and that would just spoil the surprise. After that, we are going south to see some favorite kids (and their parents), and then we are going to drive around some parks. We expect to see some cowboy country, and some badlands country, maybe a few animals along the way, and stay in some bed and breakfasts. It's been a while since we had a long holiday, and we are both in the mood to head out!

Yesterday we washed the cat. She is all cuddly and mushy today, having quickly forgiven me (whew). I'm just curious if she'll be as forgiving in a month. We haven't told her yet that she has to spend it with a DOG.